Travellers' Checks | Can Malaysia’s Desaru Coast compete with Sentosa in Singapore or Indonesia’s Bintan Island?
- Backed by Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, which invested US$1.1 billion in its development, the resort has a slew of luxury hotels and two golf courses
- Doubts remain over its sustainability, however
The Malaysian government first started developing a resort area around Desaru, on the far southeastern coast of peninsular Malaysia, back in the 1970s. The first accommodation opened in 1977, and self-catering chalets and later “luxury” hotels drew visitors from Singapore, two hours’ drive away.
Hydrofoil and even helicopter services were planned, but quite a number of people drowned in the treacherous waters off the long, pristine beach (notably a Finnish tourist and the Japanese businessman who tried to save him on New Year’s Day, 1985), and the Desaru Holiday Resort failed to live up to expectations. Western guidebooks – if they mentioned it at all – paid out-of-the-way Desaru scant attention, hotels closed and foreign travellers stayed away.
A few years ago the government decided to invest in the area once again, through its sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional’s Themed Attractions Resorts & Hotels, and it was rebranded as Desaru Coast – a 1,578-hectare “integrated destination resort”. Two golf courses opened, in 2016 and 2017, and a 365-room Hard Rock Hotel and the Desaru Coast Adventure Waterpark opened last year. This month saw the launch of the 275-room Westin Desaru Coast Resort, and a 123-room Anantara resort is due to open later in the year. Even more surprisingly, the high-end One&Only Resorts will soon open its first Southeast Asian property here, too.
The target market for Desaru Coast includes Hong Kong travellers, but the easiest way there from here involves a flight to Singapore, followed by a 30-minute ferry (running only twice daily on weekdays, and four times a day on weekends), then a 30-minute shuttle-bus ride. Otherwise, it’s a four-hour drive down from Kuala Lumpur.