The bizarre story of the world’s first floating hotel

The history of travel is rich with failed dreams. But few have a back story as vibrant as the world’s first “floating hotel” – known at different points during its 30-year existence as the Four Seasons Barrier Reef, the Saigon Floating Hotel and then as North Korea’s infamous Hotel Haegumgang.

Like a lot of madcap schemes, it all began with a visionary: in this case, an ambitious property developer and hobbyist diver called Doug Tarca. Born in Italy, Tarca had relocated to the eastern coast of Australia as an adult, driven in part by his obsession with the Great Barrier Reef.

Keen to share his passion with the rest of the world, Tarca founded a business offering boat trips back and forth to the reef from the coast of Queensland. According to local reports from the time, the business was successful enough. But Tarca became preoccupied with a bigger question: what if his guests could spend the night by the reef?

His original plan was to acquire three retired cruise ships and have them moored permanently in the waters surrounding the reef, allowing divers to go back and forth to the coral as they pleased. But after doing the sums and considering the environmental impact, he decided to opt for a purpose-built hotel instead.

Construction of the floating hotel began in 1986, with Tarca investing some $45m Australian dollars (£33m) in bringing his dream to life. The result was an impressive 10,000-ton vessel with its shape stretching up into the skies like a tidal wave. The floating hotel had 176 rooms, a full-sized tennis court, and even its own nightclub.

From the moment it opened, the floating hotel – now christened the Four Seasons Barrier Reef – generated a buzz. Scores of guests began to make the two-hour catamaran journey, or the expensive option of a helicopter trip, to spend a mini-break stationed by one of the world’s greatest natural wonders.

Before long, though, problems were starting to emerge. The notoriously choppy weather in the Coral Sea caused frequent disruption to transport options, often leading to trips being cancelled entirely and guests being stranded at the hotel. Seasickness also became a persistent problem for guests and staff.

The various headaches began to take their toll. Within a year, business had plummeted and Tarca made the difficult decision to close his venture and put the hotel up for sale instead. Of course, being a floating vessel, it did have one unique advantage: buyers were free to station the property wherever they liked.

A new lease of life

After a quick sale for an undisclosed price, the former Four Seasons Barrier Reef was given a new lease of life. This time around, Tarca’s brainchild would be spared the high winds of the Coral Sea and would instead be situated on the banks of the Saigon River, some 3,500 miles away in Vietnam.

As the Hotel Saigon, the floating hotel remained viable for almost a decade. But when it was eventually sold for the second time, it would lead to the strangest twist so far, with the hotel being purchased by the North Korean government as part of an ambitious plan to create a special tourism zone.

Creating a tourism resort was a big enough jump in its own right for North Korea’s oppressive socialist government. But if that weren’t enough, the project would be run in partnership with neighbouring South Korea, marking perhaps the most significant example of co-operation between the two rival states.

Despite the odds being stacked against it, the Mount Kumgang tourist zone was initially successful. Between 1998 and 2008, more than one million South Korean tourists made the trip over the border to a country that had been forbidden territory for them for decades. Tens of thousands would stay in the floating hotel, now renamed the Hotel Haegumgang and situated just off the coast of North Korea.

An undignified ending

Then in 2008, all that progress would come to a crashing halt, after North Korean security forces had fatally shot a South Korean tourist who they insisted had wandered beyond the perimeters of the special economic zone. The killing led to the inevitable suspension of the tourism resort.

The days of catering to South Korean tourists were over. But that wasn’t quite the end of the Hotel Haegumgang. The floating resort remained moored in place for several years in North Korea, where it reportedly hosted party officials and high-ranking members of the country’s military.

Then one day in 2019, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, paid a fateful visit to Mount Kumgang. According to reports, the third-generation despot apparently took one look at the rusting vessel bobbing off the coast of his country and ordered it to be decommissioned.

Being stripped down to scrap metal wasn’t exactly the most dignified ending for one of the most distinctive hotels constructed in history. But you can’t deny that the floating Four Seasons earned its place in the history books – perhaps even more than once.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]