Brent Hill: Fiji Tourism CEO on the investigations into alcohol poisoning debacle

A Fijian resort at the centre of a suspected alcohol poisoning debacle is said to be cooperating with investigations.

A number of Australians staying at the high-end Warwick Resort are understood to be critically ill after drinking Pina Coladas at its bar.

Fiji Tourism CEO Brent Hill says investigations are underway.

"The resort's been great - they're very distressed, but they have been really helpful. The bar person responsible for serving at the time has been there for 16 years, he's a long-standing employee." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rain Bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Jim Fat has updated its travel advice for Key. He's
heading to Fiji after an alcohol poisoning scare at a
resort there. Seven people who all drank cocktails at the
resort have become ill and four of them have been hospitalized.
In FAT now telling travelers to Fiji to be aware
of the risks around drink spiking and methanol poisoning poisoning.
Brent Hell is the CEO of Tourism Fiji. He's with

(00:22):
me this evening.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good evening, good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
How are you, Brent? Not a great headline for you, guys.
Do you know about the condition of those who are
in hospital?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
No, it's not a great headline, but certainly there has
been some good news today. We've had three of the
tourists have now been discharged in a returning home, which
is great. And the four tourists that still in hospital
are certainly stable and they are responding well to treatment.

(00:54):
So you know, from that perspective, we're certainly really pleased
that first and foremost their health is improving.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Did the was it drink spikening? Was it myth and old?
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, at this stage, unfortunately we don't know that that. Obviously,
we appreciate that the governments have to do what they do,
which is, you know, put those warnings out. But until
we actually get the detail of the toxicology report, we
don't know for sure. I mean, there's an investigation underway.
We've we've done a lot of work with the resort
to track back, look at CCTV, investigate the ingredients, et cetera,

(01:29):
but we really just can't say for sure what exactly
caused these seven tourists in a in a place that
has you know, hundreds of tourists that at many different bars,
all drinking things like pinicolatas to forall ill, what.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Did they all drink the same type of cocktail?

Speaker 1 (01:47):
They did? Yes, they were all a pinicolata, Yeah, which
is a very normal rum based cocktail. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
So is there any action being taken against the resort
at this point or just an investigation and what about
other results?

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah? I mean obviously, as you can imagine, I mean,
tourism is so important to Fiji, so everybody is very concerned.
We take safety very seriously. We've filled a lot of
calls from different resorts, you know, asking if we know,
you know, what ingredients it was et cetera. We don't
know that yet. The resort's been great, they've certainly they're

(02:24):
very distressed, but they certainly have been really helpful. You
know that the bar person responsible of serving at the
time it has been there for sixteen years, you know,
as a long standing employee. They've supplied all their ingredients
and their CCTV footage. So we're trying to go through
everything to really get to the bottom of just you know,

(02:44):
why this one particular group have fallen.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Ill. Yeah, it sounds like Brent, thank you very much
for that. Brent Hell, the CEO of Tourism Fiji. For
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