Is Mergui the new Maldives?

1. LUXURY WITHOUT COMPROMISE
APRIL 2019
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2. 44 APRIL 2019
1 Hotel Cabo San Lucas
Billionaire Barry Sternlicht’s
wellness-focused luxury
brand brings eco-conscious
design and organic cuisine to
the sugary sands of Medano
Beach. (1hotels.com)
Four Seasons Resort
Los Cabos
Part of the East Cape’s new
Costa Palmas community,
the Four Seasons will open
this summer on the edge of
a 250-slip superyacht-ready
marina. (fourseasons.com)
Amanvari
Aman’s first Mexican resort
is still shrouded in mystery,
but we know this much: The
20-room property, which
opens next year, will lead
the pack in high design.
(aman.com)
Zadún
Ritz-Carlton’s ultra-exclusive
Reserve brand is behind
Cabo’s most anticipated
opening in decades. Expect
two championship golf
courses, sprawling villas, and
three miles of private beach.
(ritzcarlton.com)
it’s one of the only stretches of ocean in
the area that’s calm enough for actual
swimming—and the design isn’t clichéd
either: Secluded freestanding casas come
with private pools and subdued interiors,
and the guest rooms and suites all have
ocean views.
The Montage is a mold for what the
new Cabo looks like—not buttoned-up
but certainly better dressed than its old
self. Other fresh resorts in the corridor,
including Chileno Bay Resort and forth-
coming openings from Nobu and 1 Hotels,
are pushing a more stylish hook, too, as is
Zadún, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve resort that
will claim 2,000 acres of Sea of Cortez
coastline for just 115 suites and villas when
it opens this summer. And then there’s
the arrival of yet another Cabo altogether:
the East Cape, home to the Cabo Pulmo
marine sanctuary and an isolated swath
of desert beach that is being reborn as
Costa Palmas. The luxury community will
include resorts from two more big-time
newcomers, Four Seasons and Aman, both
of which are going sleek and sophisticated
in a clear rejection of wilder times. It’s all
proof that Cabo is finally growing up . . .
we may even have to start addressing it by
its proper name. Phoebe Neuman
FOR ALL OF our evangelizing over pristine
paradises and unspoiled beaches, we
rarely, if ever, find ourselves in a position
of real discovery. Mergui, however, might
finally be the place to change that.
Chances are you’ve never heard of
the archipelago, spread over some 12,000
square miles in the Andaman Sea, with
800 islands—nearly all of which are
uninhabited—scattered just off the coasts
of Myanmar and Thailand. Though it’s
the territory of the former, it looks far
more like the latter: Covered in white
sands, coconut trees, and little else, it’s
population-less, pollution-less, and, until a
few months ago, practically tourism-less.
The arrival of two new resorts is
The Goods | TRAVEL
Is Mergui the
Next Maldives?
SAY HOLA TO THE NEW CABO

3. ROBBREPORT.COM 45
changing that, if only minimally, bringing
enough luxury to the native landscapes
to keep us comfortable, but not so much
that we’ll be fighting our way through
masses of tourists to enjoy it. The 14-villa
Wa Ale Island Resort (waaleresort.com) in
Lampi Island Marine National Park gives
its guests exclusive run of nearly 15 square
miles of virgin jungle and beach. And
the 24-bungalow Awei Pila (aweipila
.com), which opened in January, is the
only private-island resort in the archipel-
ago, claiming nearly half a mile of beach
all to itself in a move that sounds more
Maldives than Myanmar.
Of course, two resorts does not the
Maldives make, but Mergui is drawing
among its members. When the Maldives
joined a similar association in 1985, it saw
its tourism skyrocket in under a decade.
But here’s why Mergui won’t be the
next you-know-who: “Our allies in
the SASEC are helping Myanmar develop
tourism responsibly,” says Andrea Val-
entin, founder of the nonprofit Tourism
Transparency, which researches the
impacts of tourism in the country. “As
we’ve learned from the Maldives and
neighboring Thailand, this is crucial to the
longevity of a destination as ecologically
rich as Mergui.”
For now, anyway, Mergui is reserved
for fewer than 100 travelers—discoverers,
you could even call them. Christina Garofalo
Though
not as far-
flung as the
Maldives,
the Mergui
archipelago
is certainly
more
secluded.
plenty of comparisons to the more-
established Indian Ocean nation. (Hun-
dreds of empty islands spread over thou-
sands of miles of turquoise water sounds
familiar, after all.) Though not as far-flung
as the Maldives, the Mergui archipelago is
certainly more secluded, something that
can be attributed to more than 50 years
of self-isolation and internal conflict in
Myanmar. But as the country stabilizes,
it has begun to open itself up to tourism
much in the way that the Maldives did
more than 40 years ago. In 2017, Myan-
mar joined the South Asia Subregional
Economic Cooperation (SASEC), which
promotes investment, trade, free tourist
visas, and international representation
Awei Pila Resort.