Travelers to Cambodia's capital will find a new luxury hotel available to rest their heads. The first new five-star property to open in Phnom Penh in over a decade, the Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra is situated in landscaped gardens overlooking the Mekong River in the city's old quarter. Close to major attractions, the colonial style hotel has 201 guest rooms, elegant restaurants and bars, a spa, two pools, a sports club, and conference facilities that are touted as the finest in the country.

A recent interview with General Manager Didier Lamoot in The Phnom Penh Post describes how the hotel's opening has ushered in a "fresh dawn in the capital" and a boom in Cambodian tourism:

When talking about Cambodia, people immediately think of Angkor Wat. And who can blame them? It is one of the world’s marvels. For the past dozen years, so much of the interest in Cambodia, for both the leisure and the corporate traveller, has been on Angkor Wat. There’s been so much attraction to Siem Reap — gravitational attraction, inevitable attraction — that Phnom Penh has been left with the second fiddle. But the second fiddle is now asking the first violin for some time on the main stage.