Hotel of the Future: Posieden Mystery Island

I was one of the lucky people at the HD Boutique show in South Beach last week to attend the semninar on Radical Innovations. There were 4 innovative hotel design projects highlighted for this seminar. The story boards for all four were located outside the meeting room where attendees could browse each project before entering the seminar. Two hotel projects were honorable mentions and the other two were the finalists for a $5,000 award that was granted at the end of the seminar based on the results of the participants votes.

The Posiedon Undersea Resort was the winner of the award and rightly so. A lot of thought has gone into this hotel design including ways to float this underwater hotel above a coral reef.

The French designer, Jean-Claude Carme started out building submarine parts and also worked with Jaque Cousteau. The concepts that go into submarine design are what drive this hotel design. The rooms are pods that are bouyant and float above the coral reef located beneath it. The rooms are a spacious 550 s.f. each. and boast all the amenities you would expect from a 5 star resort. There is also an underwater restaurant. And, guests can pilot their own 3 person submarine!

The hotel is yet to be built but already has 12,000 guests waiting at $15,000 per person per night. Guests can only stay 2 nights underwater and the rest of the week in a hotel on the resorts privatey owned island located in Fijian waters.

How safe is it? Well, shortly after purchasing the island a Tsunami occured nearby as a result of an underwater earthquake. The owners soon learned that a deep trench undersea provided a barrier so that the wave from the tsunami was weakened before reaching the island resulting in just a 3" wave by the time it reached shore.

To learn more about this exciting resort visit their website at http://www.poseidonresorts.com/