BREAKING NEWS Luxury Ritz-Carlton Set to Rise in Phang Nga

The vaunted luxury Ritz-Carlton brand is set to debut in Phang Nga with the signing of Similan Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve. Located in Bo Dan, just north of Tha Sai, the 79 key upscale villa resort will open by the fourth quarter of 2011. Developed by an institutional private equity firm, the site was previously owned by Kingdom Hotel Investments and had been earmarked for a Raffles managed product.
Phang Nga has seen a large scale high end residential explosion over the past few years with million dollar villas rising on Natai beach where unlike Phuket island itself ocean front property has been available though prices have skyrocketed. With access just over the Sarasin bridge the resort areas under development have good road infrastructure and door to door travel time to Phuket International Airport (PIA). Aside from the Ritz-Carlton project Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li acquired the Thai Muang 1000 rai golf course site and is reported to be developing a large scale mixed use resort.