Nguyen Duc Kiem remembers a time when there was no road along the banks of the Thu Bon River, and guests at the resort where he works could walk straight from the garden to a bamboo jetty on the caramel-colored water.

On April 2, 2012, Kiem, aged 58, will have spent eight years as a painter at Life Heritage Resort in Hoi An, a property that recently trumped thousands of contenders to claim a spot among Asia’s top ten resorts during the 2011 Readers' Choice Awards by Conde Nast Traveler magazine.

The win is not a one-off occurrence for the 94-room property at 1 Pham Hong Thai. In 2011, the resort bagged its third win in the Readers’ Choice Awards and its second appearance on Conde Nast's Gold List of the world’s best properties.

In a country where many hoteliers struggle to maintain service standards, Life Resort’s GM Stuart Murphy credits the property's success to its personnel, some of whom, like Kiem, have been around since the start.

“Granted we are in an exceptional location, with lots of greenery and beguiling French-Vietnamese architecture, but those are just the bare bones – it’s the staff who really make or break the experience,” says Murphy.

Kiem, who is regularly mentioned in the property’s reviews on TripAdvisor, has been praised by guests for everything from his enthusiastic greetings, to checking on them when they are sick, to giving busy mothers a hand with their bags.

“Everyone who travels to a new place wants to feel welcome,” he says, “I don’t want to wait for visitors to greet me, I want to greet them first.”

This anticipation of guests’ feelings is an important part of service training at the resort, according to its Front Office Manager, Pham Anh Thy.

Now 32, Thy began working at the property as a receptionist a few weeks after it opened in 2004. Since then, he has trained and found suitable roles for numerous new staff members within the property.

“Besides teaching staff to read guests’ needs and pay attention to detail, all department heads at the resort also encourage a feeling of friendship and communication among their teams,” says Thy. “When our staff feel cared for they concentrate better on their jobs.”

Thy has the hotel’s formula down as a combination of well-trained staff, ideal location, international management and memorable style.

Managed by the Dutch-owned Life Resorts group, the resort is only a few steps away from the Old Town, and from its lush gardens guests have a prime view of the river traffic.

In 2008, the resort underwent a full renewal of its rooms, infusing them with a Tropical Asian Moderne look by Pisani Designs. In early 2009, the resort opened its relocated Life Spa with four new treatment rooms; and debuted its open-air Heritage Bar, featuring a collection of historic photographs taken in Hoi An over the past 80 years.