Australia's world-first floating hotel in dire straits as Kim Jong-un seeks renovations

Updated

After a bizarre 14,000 kilometre journey that saw it sit for more than a decade in North Korean waters, Townsville's former Barrier Reef Floating Resort — the world's first floating hotel — is now facing an uncertain future.

Key points: The Barrier Reef Floating Resort opened in waters off Townsville in 1988

It was sold and moved to Vietnam, and later to North Korea

Kim Jong-un wants to renovate the tourist site where the floating hotel is moored

According to a state media report, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered the removal of all "backward" and "shabby" facilities at the Mount Kumgang tourist resort, the current resting place of the 30-year-old floating hotel.

The Mount Kumgang resort, which was developed in the 1990s by South Korean companies, was once seen as an important symbol of cooperation between the two Koreas.

But during a recent inspection, Mr Kim made it clear he was not pleased by what he saw at the resort, likening the facilities to "makeshift tents in a disaster-stricken area".

"They are not only very backward in terms of architecture but look so shabby as they are not properly cared for," he said.

"The buildings are just a hotchpotch with no national character at all."

Mr Kim called for the "unpleasant-looking facilities" to be removed and rebuilt to "meet [North Korea's] own sentiment and aesthetic taste".

But the Barrier Reef Floating Resort — which was renamed Hotel Haegumgang after its sale to a South Korean company, and its subsequent journey to the North — has developed something of a cult following in Australia.

From Townsville to North Korea

The Barrier Reef Floating Resort was built in Singapore and towed more than 5,000 kilometres to Townsville, where it opened in 1988 as the world's first floating hotel.

Its facilities included tennis courts, swimming pools, nightclubs, bars and restaurants — however it was only open for business for about a year, before being sold to a Vietnamese company and moved to Ho Chi Minh City.

The hotel stayed open for close to a decade in Vietnam before being sold again, this time to a South Korean company which moved it to the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea.

The Townsville Maritime Museum houses a popular exhibition about the hotel, and curator Robert de Jong told the ABC it still holds a certain nostalgia for many Australians who visited the resort, or were involved in its operations.

Asked about the news from North Korea, Mr de Jong said while it was "sad to hear", it was not unexpected.

"It's probably the way things had to go. It wasn't built to last forever," he said.

"Obviously it has no more use in North Korea and I'm not sure anybody would be willing or interested in taking it and mooring it somewhere else."

Mr de Jong said a report on the hotel by the ABC last year generated interest from all over Australia, with people passing on memorabilia and stories of visiting and working on the hotel.

One such email was from an Australian man who had worked as a contractor in South Korea, and who was once invited to visit the North Korean resort with his wife.

"The first thing that got their attention was all the power points were Australian," Mr de Jong said with a laugh.

"It was a bizarre experience being in North Korea, using Australian power plugs."

But despite the nostalgia, Mr de Jong said the museum did not plan to ask Mr Kim to send the floating hotel back.

Either way, the hotel rarely receives guests these days.

Tours to Mount Kumgang were launched in 1998, but were suspended in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist who had wandered unknowingly into a military area.

At a summit last September in Pyongyang, Mr Kim and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in vowed to restart tours to Mount Kumgang, however relations have grown frostier in recent times, following lacklustre progress on denuclearisation talks between the North and the United States.

Since its closure, the South Korean-funded facilities that remain there have only been used during infrequent inter-Korean events, such as reunions of families separated by the Korean War, last held in August 2018.

ABC/wires

Topics: tourism, travel-and-tourism, world-politics, offbeat, human-interest, korea-democratic-peoples-republic-of, australia, townsville-4810

First posted