The Andaman Embrace Resort & Spa, due to open in December, will be Patong’s new Sino-Portuguese resort.

Swiss hotel operator Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts will open a second hotel on Phuket’s Bang Tao Beach West Coast at the resort formerly known as The Palm Beach Club

Laguna Hotels & Resorts Plc., which jointly owns Laguna Beach Resort, is to sell its shareholding in the hotel for B723.56 million to Laguna Phuket Club Co. Ltd, a Thai company controlled by Real Estate Equity Partners, an Asian focused real estate private equity fund.

Amari Estates, an established Thai hotel and resort group, will build two new developments, one in Patong and the other at Nai Harn in the south of the island.

The expansion into Khao Lak in Phang Nga, north of Phuket, by Phuket resort developers continues with the Kata Group announcing plans for a B1.2 billion resort–the Khaolak Cassaway Resort and Spa–to be built in this growing area for destinational resorts.

The 419-room Sheraton Grande, one of the longest established five-star hotels on Phuket, will close from 1 July, 2011 for B500 million worth of extensive renovations and refurbishment covering all rooms and public areas and re-open as Angsana Laguna Phuket on 1 December, 2011.

The Yamu, the 5-star+ hotel in Phuket that was stalled by the global financial crisis, is once more under construction, and Como of Singapore has been appointed to manage it.

Mom Tri’s Boathouse, the island’s first five-star boutique hotel, which opened 21 years ago on Kata Beach, has been sold to the owners of the luxury Trisara resort.

The Chairman of Central Plaza Hotels Suthikiati Chirathivat – who’s also a director of Central Pattana, which owns Central Festival Phuket among other things – came to Phuket at the weekend with a couple of dozen Bangkok journalists to check out his latest creation, the 262-room 2.3-billion-baht Centara Grand Beach Resort on Karon Beach.

The Indigo Pearl Resort and the Dusit Laguna Resort have both scored awards in the annual “Oscars of the travel world” – the World Travel Awards.