GO...UP & AWAY - JAXFAX Travel Marketing Magazine

FiJi
Finding Value
In Paradise
Ryley Hartt
I’m lying supine against the trunk of a fallen coconut tree on
my own private beach at Jean Michel Cousteau Fiji Resort
(www.fijiresort.com). A gentle breeze rustles the palm
fronds overhead, carrying the sweet smell of frangipani
blossoms and small roadside brush fires in its vectors.
There is a saying here that the coconuts have eyes, that they
always manage to avoid people, though I am skeptical. A
google search reveals one hundred and fifty coconut-related
RYLEY HARTT
Meke at Tau Village
deaths reported annually worldwide. None so far at Cousteau.
The sunlight strikes the crystalline water and charges it with
lambent color. Here I could easily exhaust my allotted word
count on a single tide pool, pontificating on the differences between
viridian and lapis lazuli etc., but if you’ll meet me
halfway I think we can do this in three words—electric copper
green—and move on. Similarly, I could drum up a million ways
to describe the white beach sand I’m resting on, but it would
be far more interesting to report that most of it is coral, pulverized
and passed through the digestive chamber of a parrotfish.
Indeed, I spent nearly an hour before breakfast
watching them gnaw on the reef with their deceptively rugged
beaked dentition. A single fish can produce up to a ton of sand
in one year. Knowing that our appreciation of nature is always
culturally derived, I guess it would suffice to say that Fiji looks
a lot like a Corona ad, but that wouldn’t give you anything to
think about the next time you’re cleaning out the fish tank or
the litter box.
I am really trying to construct something roughly chronological
here, but the concept of “Fiji time” isn’t really programmed
for chronological. It’s been 6 days since I arrived and
in that time I’ve been presented with 5 seashell necklaces, 6
garlands of flowers, 7 perfumed face cloths and 15 bowls of
kava (high tide, i.e. full to the max, mercifully not all in one sitting).
At least 8 songs have been sung in my honor and I’ve
been coaxed onto 3 massage tables where I spent 2.5 hours
wondering what my face would look like to someone staring
up at the padded doughnut. I have gone through 2 scuba tanks
and 2 sleeves of golf balls. The promise of a “unique and authentic
experience,” the same one that usually triggers my
fight or flight instinct, has been paid many times over. My
memory card is full, and I am not talking about bytes.
When you are selling Fiji to clients, bear in mind that they
are increasingly seeking out experiences, not just destinations.
They can probably imagine what the beaches look like.
Chances are they’ve read about the friendly people and already
know how to say bula, vinaka, and “No more Fiji Bitter, I’ll take
a Heineken please.” I doubt they’d expect to be greeted by
name right off the plane, engaged by locals everywhere they
go and invited to dinner or to drink kava in a song circle with
their new friend from the resort staff. Fiji is already a wellknown
destination for honeymooners and couples (about 80
percent of American visitors), but is underappreciated by the
FIT and family markets that its laid-back, effusive personality
truly caters to. Mention that childcare is dirt-cheap, engaging,
and thus guilt-free at most resorts.
For FITs there are no roped-off viewing areas and no phony
52 ASIA & THE SOUTH PACIFIC WWW.JAXFAX.COM FEBRUARY 2010