Banyan Tree Resort demolishment

The demolishment of the Banyan Tree Resort at Intendance started in fall 2020 and seems to now pretty much completed at the end of March of 2021. All of the villas and most of the front of the house buildings have been taken down to the foundation level. The understanding is that these foundations will stay but will be expanded to then provide for larger villa designs.

We did have a number of booking requests for the last year, some from potential new guests and repeat visitors who clearly were aware that the Residence was very isolated and private and as such would represent kind of an ideal quarantine/low risk COVID setting.

Unfortunately all these booking requests had to be declined due to the fact that, under government legislation, The Residence has to be operated under the resort’s hotel license but the resort no longer exists and has no license. 

The authorities accept that there are no provisions in the corresponding policy structure for foreign owned villas operated outside this framework and that it is an issue which will eventually need to be addressed. We hope that corresponding decisions will be taken in due course.

The noise pollution and the smoke from burning tons of timber down at the car park area would have impacted guest stays during the demolition period however the hope is that this will be less of an issue once the construction of the new resort starts in earnest.

The new owners also appear to have problems with the existing service agreements and the corresponding government laws in place. Issues which it looks like will need to be discussed and ironed out by the lawyers although the authorities have informed the owning company on several occasions to reinstate all the former services as soon as possible.

So hoping that there will be relevant decisions as far as the licensing agreement and being able to again accept guests in the not too distant future, please feel free to send any new booking requests/inquiries which we will discuss with the authorities to establish the status of solving these outstanding issues.

The new caretaking couple from Sri Lanka have settled in well and we have also used the down time to do some work on the pool, install all new AC units, upgraded the rain water collection system and dealt with painting and carpentry work. 

Thanks for your understanding.