World's first floating hotel cost $45 million, helped thaw relations between North and South Korea, but its journey ended with tragedy

A one-of-a-kind luxury hotel once floated on the seas of the world, but met with a tragic end a few years back. The Four Seasons Barrier Reef Resort, a five-star facility, opened off the coast of Australia's Townsville in 1988 as the world’s first floating hotel. The amenities were even crazier: It featured nightclubs, swimming pools, bars, restaurants, and a picturesque tennis court.

It had nearly 180 rooms across seven storeys and could accommodate 350 guests, and its uniqueness put Townsville on the world map. But a series of events over the coming decades saw the hotel go through several relocations and eventual demolition. Here's the story of the hotel.

'A world-first attempt'

The resort was the brainchild of the Italian-born Australian developer Doug Tarca, and opened for business in March 1988 over the John Brewer Reef off Townsville. It was built at Singapore's Bethlehem shipyard on a budget of about $40 million (approximately $113m today, adjusted for inflation).

The 12,000 tonne hotel was initially a hit with tourists, Robert De Jong, a curator at the Townsville Maritime Museum, had told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 2018. "It was a world-first attempt to have people staying on the reef in a floating — literally, a floating — hotel," he told the publication. "It really put Townsville on the map, because it was something that was very unique in this area, and unique around the world," he added.

Getting to the luxury hotel wasn't cakewalk: It required either a two-hour ride on a fast catamaran or a much quicker yet costlier helicopter ride.

A new home in Vietnam

Despite the unique experience it offered, the hotel only operated for about a year in the area. Rough weather in the region meant that connections to the mainland were often severed. The number of guests started to go down and eventually, the owner found the hotel too costly to keep running. It was then sold, and made a 5,000 km journey to Vietnam, where it was renamed as the Saigon Floating Hotel.

The hotel operated there for almost a decade, where it gained popularity among luxury travelers during the Southeast Asian country's postwar tourism boom. "It became really successful, and I think the reason was that it was not in the middle of nowhere but on a waterfront," De Jong said, according to CNN.

An unlikely destination

In 1997, more financial woes occurred, and the floating hotel was passed on to another owner, this time a company in South Korea. That owner sent it to North Korea, where it played an interesting role in the country's sour relationship with its southern rival. It was moored in North Korea's Mount Kumgang Tourist Region, a coastal resort north of the border with South Korea. The port had been a key symbol of co-operation between the two countries.

The floating hotel was renamed Hotel Haegumgang by its new owners. "Apparently (the hotel) was transferred to North Korea, when there was a time in the history of the two Koreas of appeasement and thawing of relations," De Jong told the ABC.

A tragedy forced the hotel's end

A tragic turning point came in 2008, when a North Korean guard shot dead a 53-year-old South Korean tourist at the Mount Kumgang resort, after the traveler reportedly wandered into a military zone. Tours from the South to the North were then suspended, and the period of cooperation between the two Koreas was over.

In October 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the hotel to be destroyed, along with several other facilities owned by South Korean companies, describing them as "shabby" with "no national character at all." Intelligence reports from South Korea said the floating hotel was among several sites destroyed by the government of North Korea in 2022.