Taumeasina Island Resort has won an international ‘Luxury Beach Resort’ in the World Luxury Hotel Awards 2019.

They have taken out the prize for Oceania and Australia for the first time, and were the only Samoan winners of the competition. 

The resort's General Manager, Tuiataga Nathan Bucknall, said it was very special to be awarded. Taumeasina were not able to send a representative to receive the award in person at the ceremony held in Finland this week.

“It’s great for Samoa as a destination,” he said.

“It’s great for all of us here because it puts a bit of destination awareness on the country, which is excellent.”

Tuiataga said between Taumeasina Island Resort’s award, and Seabreeze winning Most Romantic Resort in the World Travel Awards, Samoa just got a big boost to tourism.

“We are very proud of the team here, we’re proud of Samoa as a whole because we’ve now got two awards in the space of two days.”

The resort’s winning feature, its beach, has not been without its challenges. The sand is often reclaimed by larger and larger king tides and needs to be excavated frequently.

“We spend a lot of time pulling the sand back up and we are going to have to get some sand this month and redo it,” Tuiataga said.

The resort is also planning to raise the beach behind the resort, facing Moata’a in order to plan ahead for the rising sea levels which threaten the beach.

Tuitaga said the king tides have risen so far as to flood some restaurants on the shore which he does not remember happening even four years ago. 

The World Luxury Hotel Awards were established in 2006, and awards are won through online votes during a four week voting period.