We are big fans of Queensland's incredible Great Barrier Reef and since we keep reading that it's kinda threatened by human activity and global warming, we're not really sure that we like the idea of the floating hotel called Reefworld that the UK Times reported about on the weekend.
They're saying that Reefworld will be the world's first "fully eco-friendly floating hotel" and includes eight underwater guestrooms. The bathrooms will have glass walls so all the fish will be able to see what you're up to in there! The plan is to combine it with a research facility, and also power the whole thing using solar panels and its own turbines and "underwater trickle-charge generators".
It sounds a bit science fiction-like and reactions have been mixed. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have apparently given it their support, but local dive operators are more skeptical. And while in theory we love the idea of an underwater bedroom, we'd rather make sure the reef was still there for future generations to enjoy. Because that's just the kind of people we are.
It might not be planning to check in any guests until 2012, but the Westin chain are excited enough to tell us that they are planning to open up in Brisbane soon as part of an Australian expansion.
Queensland's sunny capital, Brisbane, will house the third Aussie Westin after Sydney and Melbourne. The new Westin will be purpose-built and will have 306 rooms in a handy spot in the center of the city--near the Central Station, casino and the large convention center. It will share a 66-story tower that will also include private residences.
The Westin bed will be there, of course, and a spa, indoor pool and fitness center--although they're not saying yet whether we'll be able to get fit with their Wiis or not. We sure hope so. Then again, come 2012, there might be an even more fun way of getting a workout.
Hotel videos are all the rage this week, but we still haven't found too many that we actually like. And while we thought that the promo videos from the Hilton Caribbean hotels were pretty average, we've unfortunately found a variety of hotel YouTube efforts that are worse.
Our problem with the Hilton Caribbean promo vids was that they were so, well, promotional. But in retrospect, we liked the fact that the Hilton Caribbean videos actually featured video. The waves rolled, the palm trees blew in the wind and there were real live people walking around.
If you turn your attention to a hotel video like the one just featured on the Rydges Blog for the Rydges Sabaya Resort Port Douglas in Queensland, Australia--although in fact, we don't really recommend giving it too much attention--you'll see a lot of similarities to other videos, except that there's nothing actually moving. It's just a bunch of still photography that's zoomed in and out a bit to give the feeling that it was worth making it into a video, but in fact it's even duller than the hotel videos we already labeled dull.
Which is a pity, because we think the Rydges Sabaya Resort is actually a nice place. We recommend trying it in person (room rates start at US$230 a night) rather than living the torture of the video. And we put out the call once more for hotels to make interesting promo videos. Please.
At the top of the list for our must-visits in northern Australia is the Qualia resort on Hamilton Island, off the Queensland coast. Qualia has just celebrated its six month anniversary and the resort has proudly reported back a few statistics from its first half year in business.
Even though the resort isn't entirely complete, what they have there already is running at a 60% occupancy rate, and in such a short time, they're already seeing 10% of their guests returning for a second go.
In the wink of an eye, there's a new leader in the Australian hotel industry when it comes to hotels in the four to four-and-a-half star category. As of March 31, there will be more Mantra hotels than any other brand in that category--so we'll probably start to hear a lot more from them.
From April there will be over 50 Mantra hotels operating, a lot of which have led former lives as Saville and Pacific International properties. And there are plans for Mantra to expand even further. The CEO reckons that the rebranding will create "more choice" for customers, and while he means that there'll be more Mantras to choose from, it kind of sounds like less choice to us.
In any case, we'll be keeping an eye on the new Mantras and will let you know what changes we see. In particular, there are a bunch of downtown Saville hotels in cities across Oz that we've always quite liked, and we wonder if having a new Mantra (yep, bad pun intended) will make them even better or not.
Easter's coming early this year, and in Sydney as well as hunting for chocolate Easter eggs or greeting the Easter bilby (the Australian animal version of the Easter bunny), they'll be celebrating the Darling Harbour Hoopla Festival as well.
Hoopla is a circus and acrobatic festival that will see performers juggling, busking, abseiling and doing aerial stunts and slapstick comedy routines at many locations around the Darling Harbour precinct, all for free, and it sounds like a good laugh and a lot of fun.
Hotels know that some guests are starting to prefer eco-friendly hotels, but the Mercure Hotels chain in Australia have decided that this particularly applies to business guests, and have launched a "carbon-neutral conferencing" option as part of the Mercure Meetings range of services.
That means that if you attend a conference being held at a Mercure Hotel in Australia, you can sit through the presentations with an easy conscience: because part of the conference package involves the hotel paying up for the full value of carbon offsets to emissions produced by the conference.
Last time we checked in at what might just be the best place to stay in Australia, the luxurious and exclusive Qualia resort on Hamilton Island, off the Queensland coast, they were due to open up any day. Now Qualia has been running a few months we thought we should check in on how the luxury's actually turned out.
And the answer is: from all accounts, very, very good. A recent write-up in The Australian from Susan Kurosawa, one of Australia's most well-known travel writers, was full of praise. And that's despite the fact that some of the resort is still under construction--she said that this has been so well-managed, you never feel like you're staying somewhere that's not finished.
