Hotel Le Royal

Raffles Hotel Le Royal is a luxury five star boutique hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The hotel is located at 92 Rukhak Vithei Daun Penh, Sangkat Wat Phnom, Daun Penh District. It was first established in 1929. It is today operated by the Raffles Hotels & Resorts.

Front of the Hotel Le Royal

History

The hotel first opened in 1929 as 'Le Royal.' It was a regular staying place for famous travelers and writers like Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Onassis, André Malraux, and W. Somerset Maugham. Between 1970 and 1975 many journalists working in Phnom Penh covering the Cambodian civil war stayed here, including Sydney Schanberg and Jon Swain.[1]

The hotel closed after the Khmer Rouge victory in the Cambodian civil war in 1975. Parts of the film The Killing Fields was set in the hotel, as the last refuge for foreign journalists before the Khmer Rouge forced all foreign nationals into the French embassy. The film was shot at The Railway Hotel in Hua Hin, Thailand, which has similar colonial architecture.

It was not until 1997 that the hotel re-opened, after a careful restoration and refurbishment program by Raffles Hotels and Resorts.

References

Literature

William Warren, Jill Gocher (2007). Asia's legendary hotels: the romance of travel. Singapore: Periplus Editions. ISBN 978-0-7946-0174-4.

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