DAKU RESORT GOES GREEN

Daku Resort is nestled along the main highway a few minutes away from Savusavu Town. The resort boasts spacious beachside bures, self-contained villas and eco-friendly houses that caters for backpackers, family retreats and couples getaways.With about a 8-9 hour journey beginning with a 2 hour bus ride to Natovi, a 4 hour boat ride across to Vanua Levu and another 2 hour bus ride to Savusavu, you’ve reached your paradise.

We checked in to our beachside interconnecting family bure at around 2pm. It was our home for the next two days. The wooden bure was decorated and furnished well and included an outdoor shower with a waterfall showerhead and a concave stonewall that allowed a bit more privacy. Each room also came with a mini bar fridge, coffee and tea facilities, a spacious wardrobe with your own ironing board and hangers.

There was a ceiling fan and an air conditioning unit to help us beat the northern humidity but for the majority of the trip we opened up the balcony doors to allow the sea breeze to flow right through our room.Imagine lying in bed with the balcony door wide open, the beautiful sea breeze entering the spacious room and Beyoncé’s ‘Spirit’ playing in the background and a view to die for? That’s what this trip was all about.

First order of business: Outdoor shower photo. 💧

Now most of you don’t know this but I am a Social Media Influencer for the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) and one of the key things I advocate for is sustainable tourism. Now what pray tell is sustainable tourism, well to put simply and according to UNWTO (World Tourism Organisation) it’s ‘Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities" Now while the concept is new to the Pacific, I am all about the baby steps being taken by our own in Fiji specifically Daku Resort who is also private sector member of SPTO. I made it a priority to slot in a little tour and interview with Talei who works at Daku Resort. The “Go Green” initiative and movement towards sustainable tourism is their linens and towel change - towels are changed every two days while bed linens are changed every three days. Frequent hotel goers would find it hard to adjust to this method but it really isn’t that hard to get used to. Lessening the laundry schedule for towels and linens allows the resort to not just save water, but also electricity and house-keeping time; time that can be used to practice other methods of sustaining an environmentally friendly resort.

“We also like to keep our resort as lush and green as possible” Talei said. This was one of the first things I noticed upon check in. The lawn and hedges weren’t trimmed to perfection like other resorts I’ve been to. I now understood why - It creates a more natural environment for their guests and most importantly saves the resort form using a lawnmower, which requires oil, which releases harmful gas to function. Aside from their usual practice, Daku Resort is also heavily involved with local maritime projects in Savusavu all in the name of saving the environment.