Dara Sakor: Southeast Asia’s Largest Resort

• 31 December 2015
• Property Focus
• 3610 Views

Developed on 36,000 hectares of Cambodian coastline, the Dara Sakor Resort isn’t just ranked as the largest resort ever in Cambodia, but it’s also the largest in Southeast Asia.

Developed by China-based Union Development, the luxury Dara Sakor Seashore Resort stretches along the kingdom’s southwest seashore and dominates parts of three districts in Koh Kong province and Botom Sakor National Park.

One-third of the 99-year concession granted by the government in 2008 lies in Botom Sakor National Park, which is home to the world’s second largest mangrove forest. This abundance of biodiversity with wild animals and plants is to be conserved, allowing an available development area of 23,436 hectares.

The resort area is free from natural disasters such as typhoons, tsunamis, and earthquakes, making it perfect for exploration and sustainable tourism development with 240C all year round. Its spatial planning is designed on an “L” shape parcel on 90km (20 per cent) of Cambodia’s total over 400km coastline.

The massive high-end resort which is 263km from Phnom Penh, 54km from Thailand and 30km from Sihanoukville, is divided into seven different development phases and five major sectors; tourism, cultural, exhibition, plates and trade. With an estimated multi-billion U.S dollar investment, construction may take decades.

“On the basis of the traditional friendship between Cambodia and China and via the support by both governments, this Cambodian property will become a new tropical beach paradise for rich Chinese to compete with Hainan International Tourism Island,” according to Union Development.

So far, the first phase of the master plan, built on the 6,800 hectares and 23km of coastline, is complete. It features a host of luxury tourist facilities including five-star hotels, 18-hole golf courses, a 10,000 ton sea port serving both cargo and large tourist cruise ships, a 4E international airport, three fresh water reservoirs with a total capacity of 50 million cubic metres, power plants and water treatment plants.

According to the company, dozens of sample villas, a new 100-room hotel, the 18-hole Ocean View golf course and the seaport are expected to open for use at the end of this year, while construction for the international airport and many other facilities will also break ground at the end of this year. This basic infrastructure will serve as the base of the next phases of development and become the future downtown of the resort.

Future planning for the next development phases includes a five-star hotel group (JW Marriott Dara Sakor Resort), and the Angkor Wat Ocean Resort Hotel that intends to host ASEAN conventions, large-scale exhibitions, and high-end commercial fairs. An ethnic design five-star Mangrove Resort Hotel is also to be located in the mangrove estuaries.

Union will also develop a high-end tropical resort, thousands of landscape luxury villas, two more 18-hole golf courses, a large water entertainment centre, a beach club, a mountain club, a jungle spa club, a coast restaurant, an island park, a tropical farm, a fishing village, and an ancient town.

So far, the resort is partially open to local and international tourists with facilities like the hotel, and the 18-hole Ocean View golf course are already operating. The Ocean View course successfully hosted the “Cambodia Sea Festival 2014 Golf Friendly Match” during last year’s Sea Festival in Koh Kong.

While the resort’s sale centre was officially opened in March this year, properties are expected to on the market late this year. The priority target customers for the developer are rich Chinese.