Justin Chen & Javier Perez, Else Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur never quite gets the credit it deserves. “A lot of our guests never looked at KL as somewhere they’d escape to for a weekend. If you have three days off, you’re going to think about Bangkok, Bali or Hong Kong,” says Javier Perez, one-half of the brains behind Else Kuala Lumpur.

Housed in the historic Lee Rubber building, built in the 1930s by late Malaysian rubber tycoon Tan Sri Lee Kong Chia, Else is a boutique hotel with ambitions to show off the city’s vibrant and often overlooked creative scene—both to travellers visiting the city and to locals, as a way to “rediscover” their home turf.

“I’m excited about the fact that we are in this thriving neighbourhood that is attracting a lot of great young entrepreneurs,” says Perez of the hotel’s Chinatown locale. “People are converging. Stories are being told. That’s a beautiful thing.” His business partner, Justin Chen, adds, “If you are looking to experience KL differently, this is the place to stay.”

Walking the walk, Perez and Chen made a point of making Else as Malaysian as possible: from tapping local design firm Studio Bikin to adorning the floors and walls with pieces by luxury rug designer Omar Khan.

The hotel’s design honours the building’s heritage and history, with the right amount of contemporary cool to attract aesthetically conscious travellers. For Chen and Perez, who are both based in Singapore, Else is a debut in hospitality. Chen is the deputy CEO of investment holding company Arcc Holdings, while Perez is a restaurateur.

”We weren’t necessarily looking to do a hotel project, but we were given the opportunity to work on this icon of a building and it felt appropriate that it serves as a place that people could come back to as a landmark in [the] Chinatown precinct,” Chen says. “What really drove us to develop Else is the sense that there is still a gap for an Asiabased hospitality brand.

See also: 5 Luxury Hotels in Kuala Lumpur That You Need to Visit

Ho Renyung, Banyan Tree Group

Ho Renyung might have inherited the Banyan Tree Group hotel empire from her parents, but the soulful scion is taking the family business into the future with an acute sense of purpose, specifically in the areas of sustainability and humanity.

“Through the years, luxury has evolved to become more personalised,” says Ho. “Customers today want experiences they have a personal connection with, and brands that drive emotional responses will be the ones that last through seasons and trends.”

From supporting nature conservation to making internal efforts to educate and empower hotel staff—its empathy-centred programme promotes mindful practice in service culture—Ho is determined to make a long-lasting and meaningful impact on the environment both inside and outside Banyan Tree’s properties. “We realised it’s a quality of empathy that endows a sense of sanctuary, no matter the location,” says Ho. “Having empathy cultivates a space for diversity, adaptability and creating connections within the self and to others.

The hotel group has also been a leader in resort-based conservationism, establishing an impressive network of research facilities, including the Banyan Tree Marine Lab in the Maldives. Closer to home, Banyan Tree’s efforts have helped to protect natural habitats in Thailand and Indonesia—in June last year, the group opened Buahan, a Banyan Tree Escape, a collection of 16 private villas in Bali’s Ubud region, overlooking the island’s seven peaks and boldly pioneering a “no doors, no walls” concept.

“True luxury is feeling rejuvenated through the healing power of nature,” says Ho, “or having a renewed sense of purpose after experiencing local culture.” In March this year at Buahan, Ho and her team launched Lentera Bumi—meaning “lantern of the Earth”—the first and only resortbased conservatory dedicated to restoring firefly populations in Bali. Fireflies play an essential role in nature’s delicate food chain, and are an indicator of healthy natural ecosystems. But populations are dwindling across the globe, with some species becoming extinct due to habitat loss, pesticide use and pollution.

It’s one of many ways Ho hopes to prove that sustainable practices in hotels aren’t just an added cost for optics. Ho, who is a mentor for Unreasonable Group, which exists to repurpose capitalism for positive change, says, “Practising sustainable actions sustains business. It’s a mindset of understanding the ecosystem of how something is created and the impact of one on another. When we know the consequences of our actions, we can think differently about how we consume.

See also: Wild Ambition: These Luxury Resorts In Asia Have Incredible Conservation Programmes

Jeff Yeo, Dave Ng and Adrian Chia, Big Tiny

You’ve seen them all over TikTok and Instagram—cosy, compact “tiny homes”, often fashioned from trailers and shipping containers. But what started as a creative solution to rising real estate costs around the world has quickly become a key disruptor in the way people travel. Travellers have fallen under the tiny home spell, as these minimalist accommodations often allow them to stay comfortably in locations where they otherwise would never have the chance to—be it on a secluded hilltop in rural New Zealand or at the heart of an Australian rainforest.

In 2017, friends-turned-business partners Jeff Yeo, Dave Ng and Adrian Chia founded Tiny Away, a collection of tiny home holiday rentals. They started in Australia and New Zealand, where they now have more than 200 properties. “We discovered that rural landowners had these large plots of land but were utilising only 20 to 30 per cent of it.

The rest is just sitting there, wasted,” says Yeo, who adds that the trio saw an opportunity to introduce a sustainable secondary source of income. “We pitched the idea to them to host our tiny homes on their unused land, so they get some rental revenue from this tourism business.” They also partner with local farmers to curate exclusive experiences, like horseback riding, fruit picking and private wine tours. 

Recently, the trio brought the concept to Asia under the name Big Tiny, with tiny houses in Malaysia, Taiwan and, most recently, on Lazarus Island in Singapore. Adopting a kind of plug-and-play model, the pint-sized properties are fashioned from recyclable materials, designed to be assembled in three hours, and built on trailer bases.

“That gives us the flexibility to move tiny houses according to seasons, and test locations [to] see what works best for views or accessibility,” says Yeo. “Hotels can impact the environment quite heavily, so we wanted to minimise the impact of tourism in these natural settings.”

The tiny homes are also mostly run on solar power to provide comforts like electricity, hot water and air conditioning, while waste is composted, collected and treated with enzymes to use as fertiliser. “There was a report that found if you live in a tiny house, you can reduce your carbon footprint by about 48 per cent,” says Yeo, who says he hopes that guests will be inspired by the joy of living minimally among nature. “It’s a very eco-friendly and sustainable way of getting out and seeing the world.” 

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