The road back from hell
A year ago, after the horrific devastation of the Boxing Day tsunami, Caterer spoke to the general managers of two resorts that were struck by the giant wave. One year on, Ross Bentley finds out how the rebuilding is going.To say it has been a challenging year for Armando Kraenzlin would be an understatement.
On Boxing Day 2004 the general manager of the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa watched as the waves from the tsunami swept across his property trashing luxury bungalows and flooding buildings.
Luckily, no guests or employees were killed - damage to Maldivian resorts was not as severe as in other countries due to the natural protection offered by its coral reefs - but the destruction has resulted in a US$20m-plus (11.5m) project to repair the property.
The hotel is now due to reopen in July 2006, after the organisation decided to use the opportunity afforded by the rebuilding work to upgrade the 96-bedroom property.
"We would have opened earlier but we decided to demolish some areas and improve the guest accommodation, pools and restaurants, as well as expand the spa facilities and build a new dive centre," says Swiss-born Kraenzlin, who is overseeing the project.
Landaa Giraavaru
For the past 12 months Kraenzlin has divided his time between Kuda Huraa and a new Four Seasons resort in Landaa Giraavaru, a 120km seaplane flight to the north. Construction had only just started at the 102-bedroom Landaa Giraavaru when the tsunami struck, so little damage was sustained there.
Kraenzlin's biggest challenge wasn't the building work but what to do with the 400 or so hotel employees at Kuda Huraa effectively made redundant by the disaster.
"We knew the hotel was going to shut for a long time," he says. "Our staff have been very loyal to us since the hotel opened eight years ago and we owed it to them to try and keep them employed."
The Four Seasons network of hotels came into play, and more than half of the employees have been relocated for the duration of the building work to other properties in places as far apart as Washington, Shanghai, Singapore and Hawaii.
One employee, 18-year-old Mohamed Ibrahim, has even ended up working in the UK at the recently opened Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire.
Kraenzlin, who has just returned from visiting some of his staff working in Doha, Qatar, has been struck by how well they have coped with the upheaval.
"Maldivians are typically shy and reserved and most have never travelled abroad," he says. "Working in foreign locations and major cities must have been intimidating. It is another example of how people have grown as a result of this disaster."
The assistance given by other Four Seasons properties has impressed Kraenzlin. As well as temporarily employing staff, the other hotels in the chain have contributed to a special fund which has been used to help staff and the wider local community.
Working with a number of aid agencies, Four Seasons has helped pay for the rebuilding of employees' homes and donated new books and computers to local schools.
Much of the work has taken place on the neighbouring island of Bodu Huraa, where many of the hotel's employees live. A pipe pumping fresh water from Kuda Huraa has been laid, while work to rebuild desalination wells and waste water systems destroyed by the tsunami is nearing completion.
Kraenzlin believes the tourism trade on the island is well on the road to recovery.
His optimism is supported by the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), which reports forward bookings of 90-100% occupancy for January in some Maldives resorts. But with the country still down some 3,000 beds, a full recovery will only be in place when more capacity is added.
Khao Lak Unfortunately, the picture is less bright in the other hotel featured in Caterer a year ago, the Sofitel Magic Lagoon Resort & Spa in the southern Thai resort of Khao Lak, where 129 guests and 54 employees were lost when the tsunami struck.
Khao Lak was severely hit by the disaster. According to the WTO, only 500 rooms are currently available compared with 6,000 before the giant wave.
Only a handful of hotels have decided to rebuild and, as yet, the Magic Lagoon's owner, Zeynel Atmacan, has not confirmed his course of action.
Recent reports suggest that Atmacan plans to reopen the resort by the summer of 2007 but is being hampered by delays in insurance payouts, reported to be in the region of
Hotel group Accor, Sofitel's parent company, is also still dealing with the ramifications of the tsunami. A lawsuit filed in the USA by 15 Austrian and four German survivors claiming the hotel giant didn't inform victims' relatives quickly enough was dismissed earlier this year; but a similar action from 41 French survivors has recently been filed.
It's a year on from the world's biggest disaster and, for some, the terrible legacy of Boxing Day 2004 is still being felt.
