Australia's First Underwater Hotel, in the Great Barrier Reef, Lets You Sleep Next to Fish - Condé Nast Traveler

Australia's First Underwater Hotel, in the Great Barrier Reef, Lets You Sleep Next to Fish - Condé Nast Traveler

Australia's First Underwater Hotel, in the Great Barrier Reef, Lets You Sleep Next to Fish - Condé Nast Traveler

Posted: 21 Jan 2020 12:00 AM PST

I am 15 feet underwater, in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. In front of me, fish of every size, shape, and color—tiny orange-and-white striped clownfish, silvery giant trevally, candy-colored parrot fish—are swimming around in a joyful frenzy. I feel like I've crashed some sort of underwater dance party. Suddenly, the fish dart away at a dizzying speed. Out of the depths, a hideous, shark-like creature with mottled gray skin and bulging eyes emerges, and begins slinking towards me. Suddenly, his jaws open, revealing rows upon rows of thin, sharp teeth. I scuttle backward, only to find myself trapped—by a pile of soft, thick pillows. I laugh, flooded with relief. This sea monster can't possibly touch me: I'm watching this entire scene unfold from my king-size bed, in a glass-walled hotel suite beneath the Coral Sea.

Moments like this happen frequently at Reefsuites, Australia's first underwater hotel. The hotel, which opened this past December just off Hardy Reef, consists of just two suites suspended beneath a floating pontoon managed by luxury tourism operator Cruise Whitsundays. Reaching it is a trek—from Brisbane, it's an hour-and-a-half flight to Airlie Beach, then a three-hour boat ride over to the reef. But in this undersea sanctuary, you can observe 1,500 species of fish, as well as turtles, rays, and yes, even sea monsters from floor-to-ceiling windows, all without wetting a single toe.

Over breakfast, I tell Thorin, a snorkel instructor, about my near-encounter with the sea monster. "Oh, that's George—he's deadly," he says of the Queensland Groper. "He ate a shark once. Last week, he swallowed a whole turtle. He spat out the shell and we found it under the pontoon."

I'm reminded of this as I sit in bed later that morning, sipping coffee while admiring a green sea turtle glide innocently through the turquoise waters. George's dinner, I think to myself, a little sadly. Poor thing. And then I watch as the turtle sidles up behind a peacefully bobbing jellyfish and casually rips it in half with its teeth, slurping up its tentacles like spaghetti.

One of the rooms at the newly opened Reefsuites, Australia's first underwater hotel.

Demetrius Fordham

"It's wild out there," says Gabriella, a Reefsuites concierge, as she shows me around my suite. She gestures outside the window at a giant trevally tailing a tiny striped clownfish. "This is not an aquarium. This is the ocean. This is the reef."

Her words echo in my mind. This is not an aquarium. This is the reef.

As a native Australian, I'm all too aware of how fragile the environment is, and how crucial it is to respect it. As I write this, deadly fires rage across the country—my own hometown of Sydney is engulfed in smoke and ash. And it was only two years ago that Cyclone Debbie tore through the Whitsundays, leaving entire islands stripped bare and destroying homes, hotels, and infrastructure. The Great Barrier Reef suffered extensive damage, with some reefs seeing a 95 percent loss of coral—a further blow to an ecosystem already threatened by the effects of climate change (like coral bleaching), and natural predators like coral-killing starfish. In a region still very much in recovery, are tourist attractions like Reefsuites adding further harm?

It's a question worth asking. In the past year alone, the region has seen an unprecedented number of new tourism developments. The Queensland Government, in an effort to revitalize the region post-Debbie, pumped $25 million into new attractions, including luxury hotels like the newly reopened InterContinental Hayman Island Resort, a six-sculpture underwater exhibit, and a permanent underwater museum—the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere—set to open in March. The launch of Cruise Whitsundays' $8 million pontoon—a two-story, 6,000-square-foot floating platform aptly named Reefworld—this past December has lured an additional 300 visitors out to the reef for snorkeling and diving day trips; of these, 28 stay the night in swag tents on the pontoon's upper deck (a glamping-beneath-the-stars experience called Reefsleep), while four head down to spend the night in an underwater Reefsuite.

"It gives more people the chance to see the Great Barrier Reef," says Kate Jones, Queensland's Minister for Tourism Industry Development. "Thanks to this new attraction, we're expecting an extra 60,000 visitors per year to the Whitsundays." (The region currently receives more than 2 million visitors annually.)

Spending the night underwater allows people to make a connection with the environment that they wouldn't otherwise get, and that makes all the difference.

The increased tourism is, of course, terrific for the economy: Reefworld alone is expected to bring in an extra $23 million for local businesses. And the attractions themselves are certainly well-intentioned: new hotels, like the 100 percent solar-powered Elysian, show a deep commitment to sustainability, and the Museum of Underwater Art aims to increase awareness of the environmental issues affecting the Great Barrier Reef. But as I watch hundreds of day-trippers pour off the boat from Airlie and plop one-by-one into the shimmering water, making a beeline for the reef, I'm reminded of the tourists swarming Machu Picchu and the congested sands of Boracay—and I can't help but wonder if our increased presence might only be damaging the precious landscape we came all this way to see.

"When you have 300 people going out on the same section of reef every day, then yes, there's bound to be some localized damage to the reef," says marine biologist Johnny Gaskell, who is based on nearby Daydream Island. "Usually, though, it's not permanent, as corals do recover rather quickly from physical damage, granted it's not from a cyclone. By concentrating tourism to one small section of the reef, and by carefully managing and controlling it, you're ultimately able to protect other sites that are more vulnerable and in need of recovery."

That's good news—except that tourism on the reef doesn't exactly seem all that "concentrated." Reefworld operates off of Hardy Reef, while the underwater art installations can be found scattered all throughout the reef, from Magnetic Island and John Brewer Reef all the way down to Langford Spit. Still, Gaskell says that development is strictly controlled and that tourism sites are carefully selected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA). In fact, only 8 percent of the entire reef is set aside for tourism. (For perspective, the whole of the Great Barrier Reef is larger than Italy, spanning a 135,000-square-mile area. That means roughly 9,000 square miles are allocated to tourists—which is geographically huge, but just a small part of the overall reef).

Gaskell also adds that tourism operators are not only limited in where they can operate on the reef, but how. All operators are required by the GBRMPA to acquire a permit ensuring that they meet strict environmental standards during construction and operation, and work closely with the GBRMPA to monitor visitor behavior and reef health. Additionally, all tourism operators like Cruise Whitsundays are required to pay an environmental management charge of $6.50 per visitor to the GBRMPA, part of which goes toward protection and conservation activities, as well as toward environmental research. This means that every tourist, whether they're aware of it or not, is actually helping to fund conservation efforts on the reef.

"Overall, tourism has a negligible impact on the reef," says David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the GBRMPA. "In fact, some of the reef's highest coral densities are found at the most heavily visited tourism sites, due to tourism operators managing the site so carefully. Without question, climate change is the greatest source of impact to the reef."

But what about Reefsuites? Surely these luxury underwater suites must leave a greater impact on the reef than the snorkeling exploits of your average day-trip visitor?

"Having fully submerged suites doesn't impact the reef," says Luke Walker, Chief Operating Officer of Journey Beyond, Cruise Whitsundays' parent company. "The physical impact of adding the underwater suites to a standard pontoon design is negligible. We've had significant input from the GBRMPA to ensure the protection of the reef at every stage of development."

Reefworld, Cruise Whitsundays' floating pontoon, on which Reefsleep and Reefsuites are located.

Courtesy Reefsuites

Gaskell seconds this. "As far as I know, Reefsuites has no greater impact on the reef than having a boat out there," he says. "Besides, any small impact is outweighed by the value it brings. It's one thing to go out snorkeling or fishing for the day, and another thing entirely to spend the night underwater, surrounded by marine life. It allows people to make a connection with the environment that they wouldn't otherwise get, and that makes all the difference."

So while this idea—that added tourism can actually do more good than harm—sounds counterintuitive, especially when you consider places like Venice, Dubrovnik, and Angkor Wat, which struggle routinely with overtourism—it makes sense. It wasn't until this trip, as I snorkeled through the Reef's glistening emerald waters and came face-to-face with its marine life, that it stopped being just another destination and became part of my own story—a place I cared about and wanted to help protect.

When I saw George emerge from the depths that first night, I'd registered him immediately as an interloper, an unexpected guest. And then I caught myself. Who was I kidding? George lived here. I was the guest in his house. And like any guest, it was my duty to behave thoughtfully and respectfully. This notion of responsibility stayed with me long after my Reefsuites experience.

As travel becomes increasingly democratic, it's easier than ever to take our access to these destinations for granted; we flit from one spot to the next, assuming our right to be there and rarely questioning the effects of our presence. But when you're quite literally out of your depth, staring down the jaws of a 700-pound sea monster, you begin to ask yourself: Should I even be here?

One night, unable to sleep, I found myself gazing out into the infinite blue, overcome with awe and gratitude, asking myself this very question. And in that quiet vastness, I saw the whole thing for exactly for what it was: a beautiful and bizarre privilege.

Reefsuites start from $547 per person, per night.

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