The Cape Panwa Hotel

Thai property firm Kasemkij built this luxury inn on the site of an old Sino-Portuguese mansion on Phuket Island's southern tip. With 186 rooms, a slew of two-bedroom villas that cost US$270 a night, a batch of restaurants and bars, two general-use pools and its own hill-scaling tramway, the Cape Panwa attracts guests from around the world. But it's the hotel's handful of fenced-off private villas with their own pools and service that have attracted the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Oliver Stone, Geena Davis, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Pierce Brosnan, Leonardo Di Caprio and plenty of famous writers, beauty queens and TV stars.