1. Could you begin by introducing Tokoriki Island Resort and explaining how the journey began?
We arrived on the island 31 years ago. My daughter was 12 at the time, and she was actually the reason we bought the property. She came to me and said, “Hey, that is for sale.” It was one of those spontaneous decisions, and we bought it.
Thirty-one years later, we've taken it from a half-star family resort to a resort that has been voted among the top 20 in the world for the last five years, and number one in the Pacific for the last six or seven years. We're very proud of what we've achieved.
But it's all based on one philosophy: “Don't compete, be unique.”
It sounds simple, but being unique is difficult. Fiji has sun, sea, sand and the Fiji factor, but there are many resorts around the world with sun, sea and sand, and many resorts in Fiji with the Fiji factor. So the question is: how do you become different?
2. How has that philosophy shaped the development of Tokoriki?
My wife and I have travelled extensively, particularly because I was in the candy business and bought confectionery from around the world. We knew exactly what we wanted from a destination.
So we simply built the resort the way we would like to stay somewhere ourselves.
When we bought it, there were 17 bures. We've now gone to 36. But if we go any bigger, we start to lose the personalized side of the experience.
Our team doesn’t need a photograph to remember our guests. They remember their names throughout their stay and, remarkably, even when they return years later. It’s this genuine connection that makes the Tokoriki experience so special, our guests are never just a name on a reservation; they become part of the Tokoriki family.
If we added just two more rooms, that's four additional people a day. Multiply that by 365 and then divide it by five, which is the average stay, and you can see how many additional names the staff have to remember when those guests return.
That makes a difference.
3. Personalization appears to be central to the Tokoriki experience. How do you maintain that?
Very few owners actually open their homes to guests. Our guests are fascinated by the old man, the silly old man who was a lolly salesman. They think I'm Richard Branson or somebody rich. I'm not. I'm just an ex-lolly salesman.
But they come into our home and have a drink, and it makes a difference.
We get all age groups. Kids come along and want to talk to me: “How did you get started? What did you do?”
I always tell them: “You don't need to reinvent the wheel. All you do is oil it a little bit.”
That comes back to keeping things simple. I've applied that philosophy to all my businesses, and fortunately, most of them have been successful.
4. Tokoriki has developed an exceptionally loyal base of returning guests. What does that loyalty mean to you?
We had a couple who visited us more than 58 times. They weren't rich people. They had been coming since Tokoriki was a very inexpensive resort, and we maintained an open dialogue with them and were flexible with their pricing because it made a difference to them.
For their 50th visit, we flew them in from New Zealand and surrounded them with media attention. Suddenly, they were superheroes.
For the relatively small amount of money it cost us, the enjoyment it gave them was more than worthwhile.
That's the sort of thing you can do when you're an owner-operated business.
5. How would you describe Tokoriki's position within Fiji's luxury hospitality sector?
We don't cater for the super rich. We cater for the super nice.
When you get super-rich people, they sometimes tend to tell you what to do rather than ask you. I don't like being told what to do.
So we leave that high-end segment to other resorts. Tokoriki is for people who are rich enough, but not too rich to upset me!
We're simply trying to be different.
6. How does Tokoriki contribute to Fiji's wider visitor experience and economy?
We contribute to the Fiji economy by promoting Fiji as well as our own resort.
But I'm a great believer in a win-win relationship. When you have a win-win relationship, it can continue to be successful.
We've reinvested in the tourism industry through education because if tourism represents such a significant part of Fiji's economy, we have to educate the next generation of Fijian youth with an interest in the tourism business.
We've been building and repairing schools, and we're now looking at building a special school to educate the next generation of Fijians, in conjunction with the University of Fiji, with specialized courses that can allow them to benefit from the knowledge and opportunities tourism brings to the country.
7. After more than three decades in Fiji, how has your relationship with the country evolved?
When I arrived, I was the young man on the block 31 years ago. I was still old then, but compared with the original pioneers of tourism in Fiji, I was the boy.
Now I'm the old man.
I've been involved in tourism in Fiji for more than 30 years, through coups, cyclones and COVID. All of those things nearly destroyed us at various times, but they didn't.
We've come through, and we've benefited.
We're nearly Fijians. We've still got Australian passports, but we've got a passion and a feel for Fiji.
Our 150 staff are a family. We know when they have a toothache; we know everything about their lives.
We've even got third-generation families working with us.
Nobody works for us. They work with us.
We don't tell them what to do; we ask them what to do. If you treat people like people, they respect it.
8. What is the philosophy behind Tokoriki's intimate, adult-oriented experience?
Even when we're full, we only have 72 guests. If we added another couple of rooms, it would take away from the personalized experience.
We also give guests a choice. If you want to associate with other guests, you can. If you want to be just the two of you, celebrating a wedding anniversary or enjoying a romantic holiday, we cater for that too.
For example, our teppanyaki restaurant seats only eight people. We could fill it with 20 every night, but that would take away the intimacy.
It's about offering people different ways to enjoy the resort while retaining the character of the experience.
9. How have you approached the design and development of the resort?
When we decided to expand from 17 to 36 bures, we looked at overwater accommodation. We went to Tahiti and stayed in an overwater bungalow, and we really enjoyed it.
But the next night, we stayed in another part of the same hotel where there were private plunge pools, and we thought that was much more attractive.
We also discovered that the tidal rise and fall in Tahiti is around eight inches, while in Fiji it's around eight feet. At high tide and low tide in Fiji, an overwater bungalow can sometimes be over water and sometimes not.
So we decided not to do it.
Instead, we specialized in the things we liked. We were among the first to put all our accommodation beachfront and the first to have private outdoor showers.
They're little pieces of common sense that we implemented into the building, and they worked.
10. How does being a fully owner-operated resort shape the guest experience?
Fortunately, we own all of it. That allows us to be personal with our guests.
As I mentioned, we've invited guests down to our home for cocktails in the evening. They come back and send us emails saying, “We've never been to the owner's residence before.”
They're welcome.
That personal connection makes a difference. Guests can walk up to me and say, “You're the owner?” And I say, “Yes. Do you want to have a beer? Do you want to ask me a question?”
It's not 100% of the experience, but it's a fair slice of it.
My wife has also played a major role. She had never been involved in any of my other businesses and initially didn't want me to buy the resort. But her condition was that, if we bought it, she could make it look the way she wanted.
She has been involved in everything from the paint to the pictures on the walls. That has been good for the family, the business and all of us.
11. What competitive advantages does Fiji offer in the luxury and experiential travel market?
The sun, sea and sand are available in many destinations. Fiji has the Fiji factor.
The best thing about Fiji is the Fijians, and the worst thing about Fiji is the Fijians. But if you learn to work and live with them, combining their strengths with ours without crushing them, they respect you.
You should never walk in and dominate people.
The Fijians don't like that, and if you have the people skills, it's not particularly difficult to build a successful relationship.
Fiji shouldn't try to become another destination. “Don't compete, be unique.”
We don't want to make another Tahiti, and Tahiti shouldn't try to make another Fiji.
12. How does Tokoriki support local employment, training and nearby communities?
We give first right of employment to people from our local village.
We've also helped build a school there, and we're now looking at building a larger, proper school to give back to the community.
We make the time and effort to go across to the village, shake hands and say hello. It isn't a big thing, but it makes people skills work a little easier.
Again, it comes down to a win-win situation.
13. How is Tokoriki adapting to changing luxury traveller expectations?
In the early days, food wasn't necessarily a primary consideration. But as luxury has developed, and as we charge more, when you charge a lot of money, you must deliver.
As the saying goes, “Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.”
We work very hard to create points of difference: more than one restaurant, more than one bar and different ways for guests to enjoy their time.
They can be spoilt in isolation or be spoilt in company.
That's based on our own experiences when we travel. Some nights we want to be alone; other nights we don't.
14. What steps is Tokoriki taking to protect its environment and operate sustainably?
We try to maintain the environment, protect the reefs and preserve the sea life around us.
One of the reasons we ended up in the Mamanuca Islands is that they have some of the clearest water in Fiji. We're far enough from the mainland that guests can still see turtles, sharks, whales and other marine life.
Our dive operation has also been maintained with experienced expatriate management so that we can deliver a world-class experience.
Again, it comes back to the same philosophy: don't compete, be unique.
15. What opportunities do you see for attracting more luxury travelers from the United States, particularly from California and the West Coast?
Many years ago, when I was doing a lot of our marketing myself, we travelled to America. We were in New York once and somebody said, “Nobody in America knows where Fiji is.”
We actually went out into the street wearing a T-shirt and asked people, “Where's Fiji?”
Some thought it was just past London. Others thought it was south of Paris.
There was very little awareness.
The American market is also a difficult market to reach because only a relatively small percentage of Americans have passports.
For us, it's been a day-by-day, year-by-year effort. Word of mouth has been incredibly important, and our return business is amazing.
The US dollar is also strong compared with the Fiji dollar, so what we may perceive as expensive in Fiji is not necessarily perceived as expensive by an American traveller.
We've been fortunate to attract a higher percentage of American tourists than some other resorts in Fiji.
16. What is your vision for Tokoriki Island Resort over the next five to 10 years?
Our vision is to retain Tokoriki as it is for as long as we can.
I don't want to make it any bigger because that would take away the personalized side of it and change the whole feel of the island.
The minute you stop swimming and start treading water, people catch up with you. So it's difficult to maintain a level without doing something new.
We therefore focus on fine-tuning things rather than continually expanding.
17. Finally, what message would you like to share with Los Angeles Times readers about Fiji and the Tokoriki experience?
It's a combination of intimacy and personalization.
We do little things. I think we're the only resort in the world where guests can be sitting around the pool and a staff member will come along with a tissue and clean their sunglasses for them.
Those little points of difference matter.
Because we're small enough, the management and the family can notice when somebody is really happy or perhaps a little downhearted. We're there to say, “Hey, any problems?”
You either stay small, intimate and personal, or you become a Marriott. We have no intention or desire to do that.
When we first arrived, Tokoriki was a half-star family resort. We listened and learned, and we identified a gap in the market for couples. We built it into a three-star resort, then a four-star, and eventually a five-star.
But when you become five-star, you have to deliver. Near enough is not good enough.
We've been fortunate enough to run it as a family business that people from around the world have enjoyed.
That's the real achievement: running a family business that the world has enjoyed.
