Overview

Raffles is one of the world’s most famous hotels, immortalised by novelists such as Someret Maugham, who has a suite named after him, with legends from the tiger shot under the hotel’s billiard table to the conquering Japanese soldiers finding the remaining eccentric guests dancing one last waltz upon the island’s capture.

For most people the Raffles experience stretches no further than a photo of the grand entrance or a Singapore Sling at the hotel’s Long Bar, but guests staying here will experienced unadulterated luxury, the hotel having recently undergone a total renovation. This somehow managed to retain the ambience of colonial days, an oasis of privilege giving a sense of how Singapore once was, at least for the upper classes.

Raffles is a destination in its own right. As Austrian playwright Wolfgang Bauer paraphrased “While at Raffles, why not visit Singapore?”