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Fiji’s lost trailblazer of luxury tourism

GERARD HINDMARSH

What is it about the fascination of rundown abandoned hotels? The planet is riddled with these eerie vestiges of relaxation.

Some are infamous, like the Old Diplomat Hotel in Baguio, Philippines, considered by many Filipinos as the ‘‘most haunted building’’ in the country.

The long-abandoned Hotel Eden in La Falda, Argentina, was the hideout of Nazi fugitives, while the Soviet Sanatorium of Tskaltubo in Georgia used to be the preferred hangout for the Russian elite.

But it’s the Pacific ones that have long captured my interest.

The abandoned Sheraton at Vaimaanga in Rarotonga never even got finished, the rambling ruin all overgrown and stripped of anything useable.

In Papeete, the former Hotel Taharoa sits on the edge of a clifftop overlooking its own beautiful private beach, its former beach club down by the water now covered in graffiti – a clandestine meeting and pickup spot.

Last month I travelled to Korolevu in Fiji to get the story behind the deserted Korolevu Beach Hotel. It’s situated along the Coral Coast, halfway between Nadi and Suva, a stretch of coast long known as the Fijian Riviera.

Abandoned for almost 40 years now, the Korolevu in its day was a landmark beachfront development which drew colonial expatriates from the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. This hotel fostered the beginning of mass market tourism to Fiji.

Keresoni Gutitamana used to be a guitarist at the hotel, in a group called the Korolevu Seranaders. He recalls the place as ‘‘a happening’’.

‘‘Day and night was the same, because there weren’t many hotels back then. Locals as well as tourists flocked here in droves.’’

Construction of the Korolevu Beach Hotel begun in 1948. The term ‘‘bure’’ is believed to have first been used here to describe individual bungalow-styled accommodation units.

The 31ha coastal property straddling the Queen’s Highway also became home to a second luxury resort called Paradise Point, added in the early 1960s, directly adjacent to the Korolevu.

Even in the overgrowing jungle today, it all retains its aura of a sprawling complex.

I’ve heard that a local family take care of the property and live on site,

Original Korolevu proprietor Bill Clark . . . came up with Fijianthemed entertainment, put on feasts every night, and introduced cultural shows to educate guests about ‘‘local’’ ways of life.

so I make my way down the overgrown access road to meet a most welcoming young man who introduces himself as Conrad.

‘‘My family looks after the hotel,’’ he tells me. ‘‘Many people come to take photos – the last came from Canada. I show you around, and then you meet my family.’’

Conrad shows me through the abandoned main complex, little more than a bare concrete shell of endless rooms all built to have views out over the reef entrance. Anything of value is gone, even the roof. Tiled shower cubicles are fill of duckweed, like miniature gardens.

‘‘Paradise Point to here, then Korolevu Beach Hotel from here,’’ explains Conrad, indicating what seems like an arbitrary line through the building.

There seems no division between the two hotels, just a continuous complex. He points out where the bures were, but they have long been consumed by jungle.

Original Korolevu proprietor Bill Clark is said to have confided to a friend that it was economics that prompted his design choice for the individual accommodation units, since local villagers could build them for a fraction of the cost of building Western-style buildings. His plan was to recreate a typical Fijian village with everything tourists would need.

Later, Clark acknowledged that he knew the Fijian word bure originally referred to a temple building, and the individual units should really have been called valevakaviti, the Fijian-style stand-alone hut. But Clark surmised, rightly of course, that tourists would never get their tongues around the proper name.

Clark got much of his inspiration for building Korolevu after travelling to Honolulu and seeing how

indigenous tourism was rapidly evolving on the island. He brought back innovations like the lounge bar, and built his accommodation block facing out over the beach to the reef, and extensively landscaped around the accommodation.

This tourism visionary also came up with Fijian-themed entertainment, put on feasts every night, and introduced cultural shows to educate guests about ‘‘local’’ ways of life.

It is said that during its heyday, the martinis flowed like water, the parties were wild, and families also enjoyed the wide open expanse of land and safe swimming beaches.

Partying colonials were joined by large numbers of American tourists flown in by Pan American Airlines whose planes stopped at Nadi to refuel before heading on to Auckland or Sydney.

Added to the customer mix were regular air crews from Pan Am,

BOAC, Qantas, Teal and later Air New Zealand who all helped to make the hotel renowned for its lively atmosphere.

Two unrelated events saw both the Korolevu Beach Resort and Paradise Point Hotel close down in 1983. First, a major hurricane destroyed power lines all around the Coral Coast, and caused substantial damage to the two hotels themselves.

It took almost a year for power to

be restored, and without mains electricity the hotels could not cater to guests.

Soon after, a lease-holding dispute erupted. Land ownership is complex in Fiji; the land title for the Korolevu hotel spread over nine freehold titles, three contiguous native leases and a Crown lease to the deep water access.

The dispute escalated until all the hotel’s furnishings and fittings were removed over one night, leaving the once effervescent hotel stripped of every shred of charm and character.

Faced with a massive reinvestment to get the venue up and running again, its owners, all close to retirement, decided it was easier to shut up completely. They eventually sold the site in 1991 to Northern Hotels who at the time unveiled major plans to re-establish a tourism operation on the prominent headland and adjoining hillsides. But no plan to redevelop the site has ever materialised.

After my tour, Conrad takes me back to his family, eight of them all living crammed into one concrete cubicle protected by a tarpaulin.

Fijian hospitality is the kindest in the world, their level of overt happiness contagious. But the reality for Fijian village families like Conrad’s is to endure a hand-to-mouth subsistence life.

If any one of them had a labouring job, which they don’t, they would earn only three Fijian bucks an hour. One debate going on in Fiji has been raising the minimum wage to $4 an hour.

‘‘No hurries, no worries, Fiji time,’’ the family all berate me when I get up to leave.

Sorry, New Zealand time, I joke back, but the veiled pity is obvious in their eyes. I’m just another hurrying foreigner with a tight schedule to keep, just like all the tourists who ever came here.

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2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281543704948574

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