In October 2019, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un ordered the demolition of the world’s first
floating hotel docked in North Korea. The hotel is currently owned by a South Korean
company that bought it from a Japanese one; it was a major hit in Vietnam, but it was
originally made for Australia, designed in Sweden, and built in Singapore. Traveling
over 14000 km around the world, the hotel has experienced cyclones, fire, WW2 ammunition,
and a murder. This all may sound confusing to you… so
let’s start for the beginning.
-------
In the 1980s, Doug Tarca, the town developer of Townsville and his son Peter Tarca wanted
something unusual and innovative to attract tourists to their city. Townsville is a city
in Australia located near the famous Great Barrier Reef. Hailed as a natural wonder,
the Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system. The unmatched beauty of
life under the seawater brings millions of tourists from around the world to this area.
The original plan of Doug Tarca was to permanently moor three cruise ships along the city coast
to create a safe anchorage on the reef, but this plan was later rejected as being too
impractical. Then they came up with another ‘brilliant'
idea - they would build the world's first floating hotel.
I know what you’re thinking, we already HAVE ‘floating hotels’, they’re called
‘ships’ and they’ve been around for centuries. But Doug Tarca didn’t want a
ship, he wanted a floating hotel. He believed that you could tell the difference when you
see one.
The floating hotel would be seven-story high, 90 meters long and its width would be shorter
than that of a typical cruise ship. Unlike a ship, it would not propel on its own, rather
it would sit still on the sea water and could occasionally be moved from one place to another
using a carrier ship.
A Swedish company designed the hotel and the construction began in Singapore at a company
that built offshore living quarters at oil rigs. The hotel building costs came with a
hefty price tag, estimated to be up to 20 million USD, adjusted for inflation around
$42 million in 2020.
Upon completion, the innovative hotel was towed all the way from Singapore to Australia
for its grand unveiling. A massive heavy-lift ship carried the hotel more than 4,000 kilometers
to its destination off the Australian coast. After arriving, it was connected to a number
of anchors to stop it from floating away.
The Floating Hotel was named “Four Seasons Great Barrier Reef Resort” after the names
of two stakeholders - “Four seasons” and the “Great Barrier Reef Holdings Ltd.”
The hotel sat over the John Brewer Reef, in the open sea, some 70 km off the coast of
Townsville. From a distance, it looked like a seven-story building resting on endless
seawater. As you come closer, you could see that the Hotel was much more than just a giant
building, it was a world-first attempt to have people staying on the reef in a floating
hotel.
The Hotel Building was decked out with all of the typical in-hotel luxuries, including
200 lavishly furnished rooms, along with glowing neon night club, discos, bars, a gym, a sauna,
a library, a 100-seat theatre, a conference center, and a helipad.
Want to play tennis on the surface of the ocean? The hotel has a floating tennis court.
Fancy swimming in freshwater while surrounded by the endless seawater? The Hotel even has
a freshwater swimming pool.
The hotel was a perfect place for diving, fishing and other underwater exploration.
Guests could also submerge themselves in underwater adventures with the use of the hotel’s submarine.
Other fish-spotting opportunities came in many forms. Guests could jump straight from
a platform into the sea for a casual mid-ocean swim, while glass-bottomed boats allowed for
low-stress views of the ocean’s residents. The hotel also had an underwater viewing area
where visitors could feast their eyes on fish without ever leaving the hotel.
The hotel was surrounded by colorful coral, which the area is famous for. Other creatures
and critters in the area included giant clams, reef sharks, blue starfish and a whole range
of fish.
For those interested in tasting the delectable delights of the seven seas, there were two
restaurants in the Hotel with plenty of fish on the menu. Diners had the opportunity of
tasting some of the freshest fish around.
From the look of it, the hotel was one of the best things that happened to coral Reef
tourism in the area…. but on papers only. In reality, the hotel was a disaster, to say
the least.
the Great Barrier Reef Resort looked good on paper but it had gotten into hot waters
right from the very beginning.
First, a contract dispute with the Singapore shipbuilder delayed the delivery of the hotel
for over 6 months and when it finally arrived in Australia, Cyclone Charlie struck, sixty-two
mile-an-hour winds buffeted the seven-story luxury hotel.
The damage was minor but the hotel couldn’t be opened until March of 1988. The delay cost
the owners millions of dollars in lost revenue and canceled tickets as the hotel missed the
lucrative Northern Hemisphere winter tourist market.
With reduced prices and the hype around the novel concept of a floating paradise, the
hotel opened with a good 85% occupancy. Even then, all of these unusual attractions
came at a hefty fee - one night in the hotel could cost anywhere from $550 to $1100 per
room. A major reason for the high prices was the unusually high operating cost of the hotel.
A typical cruise ship travels from one place to another exploiting local laws and loopholes
to keep the operating cost low; this wasn't possible in the case of the Floating Hotel.
Situated in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, this hotel had to measure up to strict
environmental standards to protect sea life surrounding the complex.
There was no toxic paint on the hull. No waste was discharged into the surrounding water.
Instead, all sewage and liquid waste were treated before then being dumped many miles
outside the reef. Trash was all incinerated before being transported to the mainland.
Below the main deck of the hotel, a water-tight compartment housed sewage-treatment machinery,
incinerators, diesel generators, a huge air conditioning system, a desalination plant
that could produce up to 152 tons of freshwater a day, and a repair shop.
The repair shop was capable of repairing anything from generators to handbags.
The hotel even had a lab where marine researchers studied sea-bird dropping to make sure that
the hotel wasn’t feeding scraps to local birds.
Because of these measures, the hotel was thought to be completely unharmful to the environment
surrounding it.
The Hotel was anchored some 70 km away from the coast of Townsville, and the only way
to access the hotel was via water taxis, which would ferry guests from the shore all the
way to the hotel’s entrance, in a journey which took 90 minutes and cost $120.
Alternatively, richer guests could take the quicker and more luxurious 20-minute helicopter
jaunt that cost $325. Rough weather often disrupted these journeys.
If choppy water, high winds or bad weather struck, it often became difficult for boats
and helicopters to undertake their trips.
Visitors would often cancel their trips because of bad weather and even those who could make
it, complained about high turbulence and sea-sickness. In August of 1988, one of the taxis caught
fire and the passengers were seriously injured.
The main selling point of the hotel - the coral reef site - was also a little strange
- between 90 to 95% of the coral in John Brewer Reef had already been eaten up in the preceding
five years. Two invasions of the Crown of Thorns starfish had gobbled up the vast majority
of the coral.
Furthermore, guests, who didn’t do scuba diving and snorkeling, often complained about
the lack of live entertainment in the hotel. The widely marketed swimming pool was long
gone in a cyclone attack.
The final nail in the coffin came in the form of World War 2 ammunition. In September 1988,
some scuba-diving guests found 100 tons of World War II ammunition, including anti-tank
missiles, only 3 kilometers away from the Hotel. The Navy investigated and claimed that
the ammunition was just far enough away to not pose a threat. Apparently, until around
1950, it was legal to dump live ammunition offshore.
Such news put a permanent dent on the reputation of the resort… who would like to spend their
vacation floating over a huge arsenal of WW2 ammunition?
To hold visitors, the hotel reduced prices to even further - only $130 per night for
a double room.
The enterprise also suffered from a bitter feud between owners and the operators, poor
management, hapless marketing and eventually, bookings began to dry up. During the final
few months, the hootel registered only 20 to 25% occupancy.
Due to this loss of money, the hotel needed to sail to more affordable waters. The hotel
owners sold the hotel to a Japanese company in 1989, only a year after the hotel had opened
its doors in Australia. These new owners transported the hotel to Ho Chi Minh City, in the south
of Vietnam.
At that time, Vietnam was experiencing a post-war tourism boom, Ho Chi Minh City was flooded
with foreign visitors but the city did not have many high-class accommodations for rich
people. As an already packaged, ready-to-go facility, the floating hotel seemed perfect,
so the new owners were willing to take the gamble. The journey from its Australian port
to Ho Chi Minh City was another epic adventure of over 5,000 kilometers.
Upon its arrival, the hotel was moored in the Saigon River, renovated to give local
look and renamed ‘Saigon Floating Hotel’. the place was set for its second life.
In Vietnam, Saigon floating hotel became an instant hit. The country’s first foreign-invested
hotel offered a range of luxurious facilities, services, and 400 highly trained staff. In
1995, the Hotel Charged up to 335 USD per room per night in a country where the average
person earned less than 350 USD a year.
In its stay of more than 9 years, the Saigon Floating Hotel became a widely celebrated
icon of the rise of tourism in Vietnam. Locals affectionately knew the hotel as ‘The Floater’.
Its appeal began to wither in 1997, however, when Vietnam’s existing hotels were renovated
and many other foreign companies joined the lucrative market.
Once more, the hotel owners decided to uproot. They sold the hotel to South Korean Asan,
the tourism arm of Hyundai, who again decided to move elsewhere in an attempt to pick up
profits. This time, the hotel set sail for the unusual location of North Korea.
Renamed to “Hotel Haegumgang”, the world’s first floating hotel was anchored at Mount
Kumgang Tourist Region near the heavily guarded DMZ border, which opened in 1998 as North-South
experiment in tourism.
At the time, relations between North Korea and South Korea were improving. It was hoped
that the hotel might attract tourists from South Korea, and help to ease these relations
even further. Between 1998 and 2008, the floating hotel was the official venue for the emotional
reunion of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War, where South Korean families could
meet their relatives in the North, many of which had not seen their loved ones for over
six decades.
But in 2008, yet another bad hand was dealt for the aging vessel when a North Korean soldier
shot and killed a South Korean tourist at the resort. Seoul quickly ceased all tours
in the region.
Since then, the once-celebrated floating hotel has been eerily silent and rusting at the
edge of ghostly North Korea resort without maintenance. However, it remains open to local
tourists and I’ve found a few google reviews of the Hotel made in recent times.
In 2019, Kim Jong-un visited the site and criticized the facilities. He claimed that
the facilities were “not only very backward in terms of architecture but look so shabby
as they are not properly cared for. The buildings are just a hotchpotch with no national character
at all."
He then demanded the demolition of unpleasant facilities and the building of new modern
ones. That has yet to happen. The hotel remains
in North Korea, in Kumgang Port. Using Google maps, you can still see it.
-------
So, that was the story of the world’s first floating hotel, let me know your thoughts.
If you haven't subscribed to this channel yet, please consider subscribing. If you want
to support this channel, I’ve created a page on patreon. Exclusive content arriving
soon.
Thanks for watching. Until next time, Stay Safe.
Hi, my name is Alec Belmore. I narrate videos for SideNote. I have a channel of my own by
the name of History and Intrigue. You can check that out using the link in the description.