Philip Jenkins was appointed General Manager of Blanket Bay a year prior to the opening of the hotel in 1998. He personally supervised all aspects of the hotel start up and subsequent operation, marketing and public relations.

Blanket Bay is internationally recognised as one of the best luxury lodges in the world. It has been featured twice by The Discovery Channel; in 2004 it was positioned behind Richard Branson's Necker Island in The Seven Wonder Resorts of the World. In 2006 it will again feature as The World's Best Lodge. The coveted Andrew Harpers Hideaway Report has named Blanket Bay as their best hotel under 50 rooms in New Zealand every year since 2000; from 2003 to 2006 it was amongst the readers top three international small hotels. The UK Sunday Times Magazine voted the resort as The World's Ultimate Escape in 2004.

In 2000 Philip was elected to serve on the International Board of Directors of Small Luxury Hotels of the World representing the Asia Pacific region. SLH is a marketing consortium representing in excess of 350 independent luxury hotels around the world. He has since been re-elected twice.

Philip's other roles in New Zealand tourism have included chairing the highly successful Queenstown Winter Marketing Group for five years from 1991. He was also on the board of directors of Destination Queenstown for two years from 2000 to 2002.

Philip is passionate about luxury travel to New Zealand. He has been General Manager of four Small Luxury Hotels of the World in the country. He attends luxury travel shows marketing Blanket Bay and the Luxury Lodges four times a year in the UK, USA and Australia.

Philip was born in East Africa. He is a British and New Zealand citizen. He was educated in England. He is a graduate of The Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst and was a serving officer in the British Army for three years. On leaving the army Philip and his wife Karen ran a professional yacht charter business for eight years in Italy, France, Greece and Turkey. In the winter seasons they delivered or raced yachts around the world amassing 100,000 sea miles. Philip and Karen moved to New Zealand in 1987. They have two daughters, Tamsin and Alexandra and live in Queenstown.