Denarau Island () is a small private resort development on the western side of Viti Levu in the Republic of

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

. The 2.55 km² resort is reached via a short causeway over a creek and is located 5 km north west of the town

Nadi Nadi (pronounced ) is the third-largest conurbation in Fiji. It is located on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu, and had a population of 42,284 at the most recent census, in 2007. A 2012 estimate showed that the population had ...

and 10 km west of

Nadi International Airport Nadi International Airport is the main international airport of Fiji as well as an important regional hub for the South Pacific islands, located by the coast on the western side of the main island Viti Levu. Owned and operated by Fiji Airports ...

. Denarau is known for its hotels and resorts, with the 18-hole Denarau Golf course as its centrepiece. The development includes international chains such as

Hilton Hilton or Hylton may refer to: Companies * Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc., a global hospitality company based in the United States that owns several hotel chains and subsidiary companies containing the Hilton name ** Hilton Hotels & Resorts, fla ...

, Sheraton,

Radisson Radisson Hotels is an international hotel chain headquartered in the United States. A division of the Radisson Hotel Group, it operates the brands Radisson Blu, Radisson RED, Radisson Collection, Country Inn & Suites, and Park Inn by Radisso ...

, Westin, Sofitel and Wyndham (formerly Worldmark). Denarau Marina is located in Denarau Island and provides sea transfer services to the island chains of the Mamanucas and the Yasawas. Port Denarau, as well as containing Denarau Marina, is a shopping precinct with a variety of restaurants, a supermarket, bakery, hairdressers and tour operators.

History

The development of Denarau Island started in 1969, when American developer Dennis McElrath purchased the land. The first hotel, the Regent of Fiji (now the Westin Denarau) opened in 1975.https://web.archive.org/web/20190128151452/https://www.denarau.com/history/ Between 1988 and 1991, Japanese property developer

EIE International was a Japanese billionaire property developer and the head of EIE International Corp. Early life Harunori Takahashi came from a prominent family in western Japan, near Nagasaki, and was descended from a pre-war Prime Minister. His father Yosh ...

purchased all of Denarau in stages and started on a $200 million development project, bulldozing 850 acres of

mangrove forest Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fr ...

and building an 18-hole golf course, a marina and more hotels. After EIE went bankrupt in 1995, the resort was purchased by a consortium of Tabua Investments of New Zealand, ITT Sheraton and Air Pacific.

References

External links

Denarau Island Resort website
* Populated places in Fiji Islands of Fiji Ba Province Viti Levu {{fiji-geo-stub