Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# Discover Nauru Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Nauru
inkan1969 22:01 UTC 12 Nov 2007 | The Official Tourism website. Seriously. Apparently, Nauru has successfully joined the South Pacific Tourism Organization. |
bendigo 03:09 UTC 13 Nov 2007 | The website is, of course, the easy bit of the tourism infrastructure to get right. For those wondering about routes, the site claims that "Our Airline" flies "Brisbane-Nauru-Tarawa-Majuro round-trip twice weekly". I also read the "History of Our Airline" which should actually be called "Rare highlights of the history of our airline", since none of the low points and day-to-day fiascos that have been well chronicled on TT even get a mention! Rob | 1
Laszlo 05:19 UTC 13 Nov 2007 | The page itself is lovely - considering how little Nauru actually has to promote. I wonder about their visa regulations now - has it occured to them that if trying to promote tourism, they should also let tourists into the country? Their website says:<blockquote>Quote <hr>Visas: Visitors need to apply for a visa before their arrival, through one of the government's overseas offices. Visas cost A$100. <hr></blockquote> Let me note that Nauruan embassies are rather thin on the ground, so to say. If they do let them in, I think they'll get some "country-colllectors" and possibly some people passing through in transit. | 2
bendigo 05:45 UTC 13 Nov 2007 | I look forward to seeing the stats for visitor numbers. The first time I transitted through Nauru we were forced to go through inbound immigration before we could spend an hour in the transit lounge, then outbound on the way back to the plane - I presume it was some elaborate charade to attract additional funding from somewhere for the processing of the high numbers of "visitors" to the island. Rob | 3
islandboi321 08:15 UTC 13 Nov 2007 | I feel sorry for places like Nauru... They're trying their darndest after their economy collapses. Sort of reminds me of all those post-industrial cities in the northeastern and midwestern USA. Their whole existance and claim to fame relied on industry. When it was gone, there was nothing. Nauru... The Youngstown, Ohio or Gary, Indiana of the South Pacific. | 4
raro 11:41 UTC 13 Nov 2007 | I agree it's now sad, islandboi, but Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit etc did not blow about US$50,000,000 on stupid investments, etc! The Nauruans in power just blew it all. In the 1970's they were the second richest country in the world based on per capita income [Kuwait was first]. Then their leaders just blew it. Sad history, really. | 5
crossie 16:36 UTC 13 Nov 2007 | In Hindsight Islandboi, Given time, It will probably come to be realised and understood in the same light as Rapanui/Easter Island. As discussed in Jared Diamond's classic book Collapse: Why Societies Choose to Survive or Fail I can't really judge though, especially if I haven't been there. In the 80's they used to come to Niue all the time, get on the piss with the then Premier RR and go off on a teenager-like hoon around the Pacific in their 737, Come back a week later with the dts. A lost week and I know it well, but I have no responsibility over a whole country nor an airline business. Dumb mismanagement and we see it every day in Niue to this day. | 6
raro 02:22 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | There used to be an Air Nauru flight from PNG to Nauru to the Cooks (well, it may have stopped elsewhere as well). A friend was attending univ. in PNG, and booked it to come home to the Cooks for Christmas holidays. When the plane landed in Nauru for a two-hour stopover on a Friday, they sat in a little transit lounge at the airport. About an hour later they saw the plane taxiing, and then take off---with all of them still in the transit lounge!!! An airline rep. then came in and said the plane (and it was a one-airplane airline) had to be used on an "emergency flight" overseas, and would be back on Tuesday! They were put up at the little hotel in town. The plane showed up late Tuesday. Through conversations with the airline mechanics, etc., they learned that the PM and Cabinet had taken the plane to Tokyo for the weekend for a little partying! When I worked at a travel company in the 1970's, we NEVER used Air Nauru for our intrepid travelers, as their schedules were never followed, as above. But they were so rich they really didn;t care about a tourist industry, that guano was all they needed. I think I'll build a huge raft, about a mile across each way, and float around the South Pacific. I'll somehow entice birds to land on it and crap all over it. In a few years I'll be a millionaire (if it doesn't sink!). | 7
islandboi321 03:04 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | 50 Million squandered! Holy crap! I had no idea. They could have built a steel mill! :p | 8
raro 03:56 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | IB---Well, they built an office building in Australia, I think in Melbourne, called Nauru House. Later on they were so broke they had to borrow money against it. Then they had no money to make the payments on that loan, and it got foreclosed a couple of years ago. They invested something like US$10 million on a stage play in London, it ran for maybe three nights then closed. I think their airplane eventually got repossessed as well, something like that. Google up Nauru and check its history, fascinating example of mismanagement of wealth and assets. | 9
bendigo 06:48 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | Raro, I had a friend with a couple of similar experiences on Air Nauru en route to Tarawa. Fist time he was sitting in the transit lounge and saw the plane take off - they were told it was to take the wrestling team to a competiiton in Melbourne - it came back the next day. Next time they saw all these school kids get on the plane, and it took off. It landed again after a while though - took the kids on a couple of quick laps of the island as a school excursion! They used to also have frequent breaks in their service to and from Oz. Maintenance was done down here by Qantas - whenever they got way behind in paying the bills, Qantas would stop the servicing, and as a consequence, their licence to operate in Oz airspace would be suspended. I have also known people who have been trapped in Tarawa for an extra week, or had to find an alternative way home via Fiji because The plane was having work done, and there was no money in the coffers to hire another one to keep the customers on schedule. This was "Air Nauru" though, not "Our Airline". | 10
temakin 07:05 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | This was "Air Nauru" though, not "Our Airline". Hate to sound pessimistic bendigo, but Our Airline has the same CEO, same Board members, same Govt and even the same crew as Air Nauru had just before its demise. Only difference being the scaled down schedule and a slightly smaller aircraft with a different paint scheme and thats about it. | 11
bendigo 09:19 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | And Nauru's financial poition is not likely to improve if there is a change of Government in Australia at the end of next week, and we stop paying Nauru jailer's fees for refugees trying to enter Australia! Rob | 12
crossie 14:23 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | Yeah, there was a regular air Nauru flight to Niue for quite a few years in the late eighties to early nineteens when Hammer de Roburt died. His flight hoon cohort Sir Robert Rex died a few years earlier. If I had 50million to squander, thats what I'd do too. Fly around the pacific picking up TT contributors and having a great time. I'd only charge enough money that it would take to subsidise the unscheduled flights for as long as I lived, just like de Roburt. Would take a risk with no maintenance as I do with my skoda! | 13
raro 15:31 UTC 14 Nov 2007 | I agree Crossie, but the money was of course that of the people of Nauru, not De Robert's nor Rex's personal stash! | 14
bendigo 05:23 UTC 15 Nov 2007 | Politicians just don't seem to understand that though - you should see the amounts involved in the electoral bribes we're being offered over our election - all taxpayer money of course, which, in my view, they should have been using to build infrstructure and invest for our future, sice our current good fortune is based on digging up and exporting dirt (iron ore) - really not a lot more sophisticated than Nauru's Bird S**t! Rob | 15