HOTEL HAEGUMGANG, THE HISTORY OF THE FIRST FLOATING HOTEL IN THE WORLD 

Did you know that the world's first floating exclusive five-star resort hotel that costs an estimated $45 million (over $100 million in today's money) to construct may never float again?

Hotel Haegumgang, the world's first floating hotel, was the brainchild of Doug Tarca, an Italian-born professional diver and entrepreneur living in Townsville, on the northeastern coast of Queensland, Australia. 

In 1983, Tarca started a company, Reef Link, to ferry day-trippers via catamaran from Townsville to a reef formation off the coast. Initially, he thought of mooring old cruise ships permanently to the reef, but realized it would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to design and build a custom floating hotel instead. 

Construction began in 1986 at Singapore's Bethlehem shipyard, a subsidiary of a now defunct large US steel company. The hotel cost an estimated $45 million (over $100 million in today's money) and was transported by a heavy-lift ship to the John Brewer Reef, its chosen location within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The hotel was secured to the ocean floor with seven huge anchors, positioned in such a way that they wouldn't damage the reef. No sewage was pumped overboard, water was recirculated and any trash was taken away to a site on the mainland, somewhat limiting the environmental impact of the structure. 

Christened the Four Seasons Barrier Reef Resort, it officially opened for business on March 9, 1988. The five-star hotel "wasn't cheap. It had 176 rooms and could accommodate 350 guests. There was a nightclub, two restaurants, a research lab, a library and a shop where you could buy diving gear. There was even a tennis court, although most of the tennis balls probably ended up in the Pacific," said Robert de Jong, a curator at the Townsville Maritime Museum.

Getting to the hotel required either a two-hour ride on a fast catamaran, or a much quicker helicopter ride -- also more expensive, at an inflation-adjusted $350 per round trip. The novelty of it all generated quite a buzz at first, and the hotel was a dream for divers. Even non-divers could enjoy incredible views of the reef, thanks to a special submersible called The Yellow Submarine. 

However, it soon became clear that the impact of bad weather on guests had been underestimated. There were other problems: a cyclone struck the structure just one week before opening, damaging beyond repair a freshwater pool that was part of the complex. Also, a World War II ammunition dump was found two miles from the hotel, scaring off some customers. And there wasn't really much to do besides diving or snorkeling.

After just one year, the Four Seasons Barrier Reef Resort had become too expensive to run, and closed down without ever having reached full occupancy. It was sold to a company in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, which was looking to attract tourists.

In 1989 the floating hotel embarked on its second journey, this time 3,400 miles northward. Renamed Saigon Hotel -- but more colloquially known as "The Floater" -- it remained moored in the Saigon River for almost a decade. However, nine years later, The Floater ran out of steam financially and closed down. But instead of being dismantled, it found an unlikely new lease of life: it was purchased by North Korea to attract tourists to Mount Kumgang, a scenic area near the border with South Korea.

After another 2,800-mile journey, the floating hotel was ready for its third adventure, with the new name of Hotel Haegumgang. It opened in October 2000 and was managed by a South Korean company, Hyundai Asan, which also operated other facilities in the area and offered packages for South Korean tourists. Over the years, the Mount Kumgang region attracted over 2 million tourists, according to Hyundai Asan spokesman Park Sung-uk.

Mount Kumgang Tour improved inter-Korean reconciliation and served as a pivotal point for inter-Korean exchange, as the center for the reunion of separated families to heal the sorrows from national division. However, in 2008, tragedy struck. a North Korean soldier shot and killed a 53-year-old South Korean woman who had wandered beyond the boundaries of the Mount Kumgang tourist area and into a military zone. As a result, Hyundai Asan suspended all tours, and Hotel Haegumgang shut down along with everything else. It's not clear whether the hotel has operated at all since then, but certainly not for tourists from South Korea.

In 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un visited the Mount Kumgang tourist area and criticized many of the facilities, including Hotel Haegumgang, for being shabby; he ordered the demolition of many of them as part of a plan to redesign the area to a style more fitting to North Korean culture.

For years it has sat dilapidated in the North Korean port, a 20-minute drive from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the restricted area that separates the two Koreas. For the world's first floating hotel, that's the last stop in a bizarre 10,000-mile journey that began over 30 years ago with glamorous helicopter rides and fine dining... Although there was hope that the floating hotel, a centerpiece of the Mount Kumgang resort area, might be able to have another life, that proved not to be the case.

Intelligence reports in South Korea say that the floating Hotel Haegumgang was among the sites destroyed by the North Korean government in 2022, along with Onjonggak Rest House, where televised reunions between separated relatives from both sides of the DMZ previously took place.

Source:

Culled from: Hotel Haegumgang: The sad and surprising story of North Korea's floating hotel' By Jacopo Prisco, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/north-korea-floating-hotel-haegumgang/index.html