The resort where New Yorker Janis Aurichio says she found so much violence is part of a globe-spanning chain of luxury hotels renowned among celebrities and the super-rich.
Named after the Sanskrit word for “peace,” Amanresorts is a group of 18 high-end hangouts for the well-heeled, located in some of the world’s most exotic locals: Bora Bora, Java, Sri Lanka, Bali and Morocco. The privately held, Singapore-based company was started in the 1970s by Indonesian business mogul Adrian Zecha, who built a hotel in Phuket, Thailand, just to subsidize the cost of a mansion he wanted to build there, Forbes magazine has reported.
The company is so exclusive that it hardly ever advertises and the resorts have become popular among jet-setters dubbed “Aman junkies.” It has only two properties in the Western Hemisphere, one in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and the Amanyara Hotel in the Turks and Caicos, where Aurichio and her male companion were allegedly attacked.