The Slate Phuket has declared 2026, its 40th anniversary year, as the Year of MICE. The year will see new experiences, new themes, and new offers launched to take every meeting, conference, incentive and event to the next level.
There are hotels that host events, and then there are hotels that stage them like theatre. On the northern shore of Phuket, beside Nai Yang Beach and Sirinat National Park, The Slate stands as an extraordinary paradox: part industrial dreamscape, part tropical reverie. Here, steel meets silk, heritage meets avant-garde, and every detail hums with the creative vision of its owners Wichit Na Ranong and his daughter Khun Moo, and brought to life by landscape designer, Bill Bensley, the man who turned hospitality into high art.
The story began in 1986 with the modest Pearl Village Hotel, long before Phuket was fashionable. Four decades and two transformations later; first as Indigo Pearl, now as The Slate, the resort has emerged as a design dreamscape, steeped in the island’s tin-mining past yet entirely modern in its sensibility.
For 2026, its fortieth anniversary year, The Slate is turning its imaginative energy towards an unexpected theme: The Year of MICE – Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions; redefined, re-enchanted and reimagined as something far more inspiring than business as usual.
Step inside the property and it’s clear The Slate is unlike any other MICE venue. There are no cookie-cutter corporate layouts. Instead, vast open spaces are framed by sculptural ironwork, burnished timber, and lush greenery. The 550-square-metre Tongkha Hall, all sleek lines and pillarless grandeur, feels as much like an art gallery as a ballroom. Above it, the Jomon Pavilion with its high vaulted ceiling is bathed in natural daylight, perfectly sized for smaller gatherings. Across the grounds, the Coliseum Lawn and its five-tiered Coliseum Steps cascade down to a permanent stage. An open-air amphitheater where creative visions find their audience.
The Slate is a resort where an executive summit might become a sunset gala, a product launch might turn into a fashion show, and a meeting could just as easily end in moonlight cocktails at dinner at Black Ginger.
But this is more than beauty for beauty’s sake. The Slate’s soul lies in its storytelling and in its conscience. Sustainability is incorporated into the language of luxury lifestyle. The guest rooms have sustainability built into their walls. Plastic has been removed from the guest experience, food waste is transformed into compost for the resort’s lush gardens and refillable amenities and ceramic mugs have replaced disposable comforts. There’s even a worm farm and a mechanical composter, both emblematic of the resort’s commitment to close the loop between indulgence and integrity. The hotel is mindful of energy and water consumption, EV charging points are on the horizon and local ingredients grown, caught or crafted in Thailand anchor the menus.
At its heart, The Slate operates on the belief that design should be both dazzling and responsible. Sustainability, when done with grace, is simply another form of responsible elegance. Of course, none of it would work without the human touch. Behind every seamless event is a team of planners and dreamers who treat logistics as choreography. Whether it’s a board retreat for ten or a celebration for a hundred, the hotel’s event pros curate every moment with quiet precision and passionate flair, the kind that never announces itself, yet is felt in every detail.
And when the final meeting slides conclude, there’s the other side of The Slate: a lifestyle destination that invites you to linger. Guests dine at Black Ginger, the resort’s celebrated restaurant with a memorable arrival experience floating over a candlelit lagoon, while at Coqoon Spa, a sensual signature of woven nests and natural therapies provides the ultimate in serenity. Beyond the gates, the village of Nai Yang offers another rhythm entirely with local beach bars, restaurants, convenience stores and the easy pulse of Thai island life.
The Slate’s 40th anniversary is more than a milestone; it’s a meditation on transformation. How a hotel born from the heritage of mining earth’s minerals became a sanctuary for modern imagination. In dedicating 2026 as The Year of MICE, The Slate invites the world not just to meet, but to connect, to create and to celebrate.
In this extraordinary corner of Phuket, meetings aren’t simply held, they are composed, like symphonies in steel and sunlight.
