September 21, 2021 • 21 mins
Few hotels combine exclusivity, luxury, and sustainability like the Brando does. In the first of our miniseries focusing on the best hotels and resorts in the world, we take a closer look at this remarkable private island property set on the Teti'aroa atoll near Tahiti.
The vision for the resort began with Teti'aroa’s owner—and French Polynesia’s most famous resident—Marlon Brando. After falling in love with French Polynesian culture, Brando bought his own piece of paradise in 1967. After years of enjoying the biodiverse beauty of the multi-islet atoll—which is protected by a coral reef that encircles the islets—he decided that Teti'aroa had to be shared.
In 1999 Brando began working with Richard Bailey, an American hotelier living in Tahiti. Bailey, who is also the founder of the nonprofit Teti'aroa Society, at first struggled to reconcile Brando’s “crazy ideas” about how to build a self-sustaining resort that did more good than harm. But he eventually embraced the then-pioneering concepts of Brando—whom he calls one of the “first earth champions”—and went to work building a resort unlike anything the world had ever seen.
Bailey joins Bruce to share Brando stories and how the actor’s vision comes to life at the Brando, which opened in 2014. Thanks to features like a seawater air-conditioning system, solar power, and coconut oil, the resort today is carbon neutral from an energy standpoint—and yet still delivers one of the most exclusive and luxurious vacation experiences on Earth.
The true luxury in Bailey’s eyes comes from being in a location where you are secluded and can enjoy the island’s beauty, history, and culture. The resort of course has a world-class spa, a wide range of water sports, first-rate cuisine, and even its own private plane and airstrip, but for many guests of the property’s 35 villas—each of which has its own private pool and beach area—the immersive view of the island through archeological tours and jungle walks are what connects them to the Brando. The resort has hosted everyone from celebrities to former U.S. Presidents, all enjoying this unique resort both for its exclusivity and ecological mission, which is best summed up by Marlon Brando’s son, who said, “Save Teti'aroa, save the world.”
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Produced by: AJ Moseley and Darra Stone
Music by: Joey Salvia
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S1 (00:02):
From critical media. What is the world's best hotel? Today
we're going to introduce you to a private island paradise
that could absolutely lay claim to that title. Stay tuned
because travel that matters Best Hotels and Resorts series kicks
off right now. Hello, everybody, and welcome to travel, that matters.
(00:36):
I'm your host, Bruce Wallin, and this is the podcast
where we explore the world's most exceptional and meaningful travel experiences. Today,
we are going to talk about a place that combines
those two elements of travel about, as well as any
place on Earth. We're doing things a little differently today.
This episode kicks off a new mini series where we're
(00:58):
going to showcase the world's best hotels and resorts. Now
I get asked all the time what my favorite hotel is,
and you know, that's a very difficult question to answer,
of course. But all of my potential answers really come
down to places that do things differently. You know, it's
a given that the best hotels and resorts are in
(01:18):
a great setting. They have a warm and welcoming staff,
beautiful guest rooms. But the places that really stand out
the most for me are the ones where the experience
is something that you've never experienced before. Our focus today
is one such place, but it's one with a far
more interesting back story than most. I'm talking, of course,
(01:39):
about the Brando, the highly exclusive retreat on Teddy ROA,
the private atoll off of Tahiti that was once owned
by Marlon Brando, and today is popular with everyone from
celebrities to ex U.S. presidents. Now, when we talk about travel,
that matters. Of course, a big part of that is sustainability.
Whether it's environmental sustainability, cultural sustainability, all the ways that
(02:03):
travel can make a positive impact on environments and communities.
But long before most people were talking about sustainability in travel.
Marlon Brando had a crazy idea about building a resort
that did more good than harm. Yes, The Godfather was,
believe it or not, first and foremost, an environmentalist, and
(02:24):
his ideas laid the groundwork for what is now considered
by many to be the world's finest and most sustainable resort. Today,
we're going to hear from the man responsible for taking
Brando's crazy ideas and actually turning them into an epic reality.
His name is Richard Bailey, and he's the founder of
Pacific Beachcomber, which, in addition to the Brando, runs the
(02:46):
luxury resorts throughout French Polynesia. He's also the founder of
the nonprofit Teddy Arua Society, and he has dedicated much
of his life to protecting the environments and cultures in
the South Pacific. After hearing from Richard, stick around because
I want to hear your picks for the best resource
on the planet and share a few of my own.
But first, let's go to Richard, who one day more
(03:07):
than 20 years ago got a call from French Polynesia's
most famous resident.
S2 (03:14):
Arlen called me out of the blue in 1999 to
find out if possibly I could give him a hand
on his island. And I think what he had in
mind was marketing or something. And so I took out
some engineering guy's food and beverage. We took a team
over to have a look, and it really wasn't a
(03:35):
pretty picture. He hadn't been back in a long time.
And so I sent him a long memo about how,
you know, we don't we take care of guests. We
don't worry about if there's going to be power or
water or how to handle waste. And now really the
all of the things that you need to worry about
on a on a remote island like Pedro or I
(03:56):
became very upset and we didn't speak for a long time. Eventually,
he called me again out of the blue and said, OK,
what would you do? You're the smarty pants hotel guy.
So tell me what you would do. So I said, Well, man,
we could talk about that, but I've some ideas. And
he said, No. Now, tell me right now you think
(04:19):
you know it all and the now? I don't know
it all. But where you're going right now on the
island is maybe not the right way. And eventually we
know that kicked off a series of meetings over five
years where we tried to conceive a vision of what
would work from a tourism standpoint, but would also meet
his very high criteria. And the fact is, Marlon, he
(04:42):
was maybe the world's first Earth champion. I mean, we
were talking about issues that today we know in the
popular vernacular is sustainability and sustainable development. These words, we
didn't have these words back then, but he understood that
he didn't have power, he didn't have water. He didn't
know how to handle waste. He didn't know what to
(05:05):
do with trash and how to recycle and and are
really are our common vision was about really how to
harness science and technology to to solve some of these problems.
And the vision that we ultimately realized was just tackling
each one of these issues one by one and saying
how we could do it better.
S1 (05:27):
When the brand of finally opened in 2014, it became
clear pretty quickly that Richard and Marlon had done it better.
I was the editorial director at Robb Report back then,
and I'd commissioned a writer named Lawrence Strobel to go
to this brand new resort and cover it for our magazine.
Global had actually been the TED era before it was 1978.
(05:47):
And he was visiting Marlon Brando to interview him for
a story for Playboy magazine. It was right before Apocalypse
Now is coming out. And Brando hadn't granted a personal
interview in years more than a decade, but Cromwell spent
10 days with him on this at all. And one
of the things he wrote about was how Brando didn't
want to talk about Apocalypse Now. He didn't want to
talk about Hollywood. He certainly didn't want to talk about
(06:09):
his love, life or anything like that. All he wanted
to talk about was Teddy Arrgh, its natural beauty, the
people of French Polynesia. He also wanted to talk about
his plans for developing it into a resort. So incredible
went back in 2014. He was highly skeptical that the
Brando would measure up to its namesake dreams.
S2 (06:32):
Yeah, I remember Larry's visit. In fact, Larry and I
spoke on the phone and he said, I'm coming down.
Bruce is asking me to come down and see your place,
but I got to tell you I know what Marlon wanted.
I was a little bit defensive. I said, Yeah, Larry,
I think I know what he wanted to sell. Come
on down or compare notes Marlon. Had he had an
(06:53):
idea not just for technology and a vision for his island,
but he had a he had an idea of what
experience visitors should have on his island. And he imagined
a kind of a symbiosis where the beauty and the
and the highly preserved nature of the place attracts people.
But in visiting, you not only don't have a negative
(07:17):
impact on that beauty or on that cultural authenticity of
the Polynesian people, you actually have a positive impact and
you create a positive feedback loop for sort of a
virtuous cycle where just by being here, you're contributing to
the preservation of the site to the preservation of Polynesian
(07:38):
culture and to maintaining the beauty of the place. So
the idea of tourism being not only not a neutral
or negative factor, but being actually a positive factor. For example,
when we first sat down, we talked about energy and
he said, I don't want to have any fossil fuel
on the island. And so I said, Well, Marlon, that's great.
(08:01):
But forget about air conditioning because that takes way too
much energy. And he said, no. Now go see this
guy in Hawaii, Dr John Craven at the National Energy
Lab in Kona, and he'll show you how we're going
to do that. So we built the world's first seawater
air conditioning system and then for electricity, we have solar,
(08:22):
which is our main source of electricity. And we have
battery storage. So we're able to go about 20 hours
a day without using any kind of thermal production. For
thermal production, we use coconut oil, which is a perfectly
legitimate fuel. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and
their growth cycle, and that CO2 is released during combustion,
(08:45):
so it's a carbon neutral fuel. So basically, when you
come to the Brando, your carbon footprint during your stay
from an energy standpoint is zero.
S1 (08:57):
Instead of being disappointed, Greubel called the resort a masterpiece,
and of course, it has been receiving a similarly effusive
accolades ever since. So what is it about the Brando
that makes it so special? It starts with the arrival.
S2 (09:16):
We run a little airline called air to air, and
we have twin turbo prop aircraft that hold 15 passengers.
And we have our little private lounge and so you're
whisked away from the busyness of the international airport to
our little lounge and actually you're your brand of experience
starts in our lounge because there we have information, we
(09:38):
have videos and we have a nice, calm, quiet place
to gather yourself for the experience that it's about to come.
The flight itself is 15 minutes. So as soon as
you take off from Tahiti, you can basically see kitchen
roll on the horizon. The reef barrier is pretty effective
(09:59):
for ocean craft, and so the only way to get
here is by air. So you disembark and you're greeted
by some musicians and dancers, and you're going to go
directly to your villa. And within 25 minutes from having
left the lounge in Papic, you're on the beach ready
to ship your first flight time.
S1 (10:24):
We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be
right back to talk more about the Brando.
S3 (10:34):
On medicine, we're still practicing joined Dr. Stephen Takeback and
Bill Kurtis for real conversations with the medical professionals who
have their finger on the pulse of health care in
the modern world. Available on all your favorite podcasting platforms.
Produced by Kurt Commedia.
S1 (10:53):
Welcome back to travel that matters where Richard Bailey is
telling us all about the guest experience at the Brando.
S2 (11:01):
So we have obviously we have snorkelling galore. We have
the whales, we have the sea turtles. If you've never
been during the hatching season, we have sea turtles that
are actually hatching. The hatchlings are crawling out of their
nests right in front of you, villa. And this is
for many of our guests, especially those with children. This
(11:24):
is a transformative experience. This is something that they'll remember forever.
We have kayak tours on the lagoon. We have picnics.
I mean, this this this entire atoll, except for the
built environment that we have here on this one module,
this one islet. The Ayatollah is composed of 12 islets,
(11:45):
which we call motors' anti-Asian, and only one of them
has any construction. All of the others are a sanctuary.
We have jungle walks basically on the other most used
to look at the giant coconut crabs and flora and
fauna of these islands. We have visits to some of
the archeological sites. We have picnics on remote motors' where
(12:08):
there's just nothing. I mean, today getting to a place
where there's nothing where you don't see anybody is a luxury.
We have green tours. We have an amazing spa. We
have these treatment rooms that are up in the tree
canopy and there's a lot to do.
S1 (12:27):
One thing you won't find at the Brando overwater bungalows, guests,
the guest rooms on stilts that sit over turquoise lagoons
that are pretty much synonymous with Tahiti and Bora Bora
do not exist at the Brando. Why? Well, that's the
way Marlon wanted it.
S2 (12:47):
Another issue that Marlon and I discussed very early on.
I mean, I I built resorts, and if you do
what I do, you dream of having a place like
tequila as a canvas to express yourself on. I told
my island the first time we sat down that we
have to build overwater bungalows. We're going to build overwater
bungalows over here. We're going to build them over there.
(13:09):
You've got this amazing the gun we're going to build,
lavorato or gunners everywhere. And he said, No, we are not.
That's wrong. We're actually not going to build any guests
at our resort should be able to walk around this
island without encountering any obstruction, physical or visual. And we
(13:30):
don't want him to have to cross any kind of
walkway or have their view obstructed by these bungalows out
on the horizon. And he said, anyway, they're not that private.
When you're in your overwater bungalow, that's not so private.
You can wave to the guy that's on the overwater
bungalow right next to you. His point was that everything
(13:51):
should be blended into the landscaping, into the nature. We
set everything back more than 35 metres from the beach.
So when you're on your terrace in your villa, somebody
walking along the beach, they don't see you. They don't
invade your privacy.
S1 (14:08):
Guess at the Brando stay in one of 35 villas,
each with its own private beach area and plunge pool,
which is one of the many reasons the Brando has
become so popular, with guests eager for an escape from
prying eyes. But privacy has long been paramount on Teddy Iroa,
which was a private retreat for two Haitian royalty for centuries. Today,
(14:30):
in addition to the Brando, the toll is home to
a local community that is core to the resort experience
and is yet another example of how Richard and Marlon
thought differently
S2 (14:42):
just by being here. We have finally finished surveying most
of the island, and we've uncovered over 100 points of
sites of archaeological interest on the atoll. The atoll of
pitcher oil was the exclusive retreat for teachers and kings
for hundreds of years. And we know this by studying
(15:02):
the archaeology that we found and the logbooks of the
early explorers like Captain Cook and Captain Bougainville are are
replete with references to pitaro. And in fact, in Captain Cook,
Second Voyage had to wait at Anchor in Tahiti for
three months for the King to come back from zero
before he could designate the place where the Marines would
(15:25):
go ashore and set up their fort. The community on
Pedro is the one that we built, which is perhaps
the greatest challenge of our project. And not only did
we had to build a greenfield development on a remote
off the grid resort with neutral carbon impact and a
(15:45):
laboratory and so forth and so on. We have a
tremendous social experiment because we have a hundred and eighty
workers living here, and you know, what did they do
in their off time? They need to have a life here.
And it's like when I first sat down with Marlon,
he said, we're going to build a beautiful resort. And
he said, No, don't think that way. We have to
(16:06):
build a community. If we don't build a community, we
will fail. And probably the thing that I'm most proud
of today is the shared values of all of our staff,
all of our employees, your manager. You can talk to
anybody on this island and they will have something to
tell you about how special it is and and their
role in helping to protect it.
S1 (16:29):
Protecting the atoll and the environment at large is a
primary focus of the teddy iroa society. Guests at the
Brando had the opportunity to interact with the organization's scientists
and experience the research firsthand. And for Richard, his wish
is that the Teddy Arua society's research has implications far
(16:49):
beyond the Brando.
S2 (16:52):
We established Ted Hero Society, which is a platform, it's
a laboratory, you know, with sleeping accommodations for visiting scientists.
We don't do research ourselves, but we invite scientists who
come from all over the world studying a wide variety
of of subjects from things involving climate change, such as
(17:15):
ocean acidity to species, populations and coral and fish and
coconut crabs and sharks and you name it. So guests
are able to wander over and see what the scientists
are working on. They can go out and actually gather
data with the scientists if they want and learn something.
(17:36):
And at the same time, by staying at the Brando,
the Brando is financially sponsors the laboratory. And so we
have this tight relationship between tourism and science to help
perpetuate the beauty of the of the place and Asian culture. Obviously,
we need to protect the oceans if we're going to
(17:58):
have any impact on climate change. And conversely, we have
to correct climate change if we want to protect the oceans.
So it's a systemic problem. And out here in the
middle of the Pacific, I mean, Titian's didn't cause climate change,
but they're going to pay the price. And out in
the big oceans where we are as opposed to a
(18:19):
long continental coastlines, this is the real canary in the mine.
This is where when things start happening here, then we
really do have to worry as to how to Brando.
Marlin Sun once said, Save Tetreault, save the world. If
we can't save one island, how are we ever going
to save the world? So our approach is actually microcosmic.
(18:44):
Our approach is to start with our society. If we
can make teterboro a model of how to do things
to effect change, then perhaps and that's a baby step
toward solving the larger, bigger problems.
S1 (18:59):
Solving the world's problems at one of the world's best resorts.
It does not get much better than that. And that's
what travel that matters is all about.
S3 (19:12):
And now for the wall and wrap up.
S1 (19:15):
Wow, what a way to kick off our new miniseries
about the world's best hotels and resorts, the Brando Richard Bailey.
So great having him on the show. Now I have
to admit I've never been to the Brando, but I
have been to a lot of great places that I
would put in that category one of the world's best
hotels and resorts. I'm thinking about, you know, safari lodges
(19:36):
in Africa, Duba Plains or cylinder camp adventure lodges in
South America, like the Explorer camps or Tierra. Of course,
I'm also a sucker for wonderful beach resorts, just like
everybody else lost salamanders, which is just down the road
from me here and on Mexico's Pacific coast. But I
don't want to just hear about my choices. I want
to hear yours. What are the places that you love?
(19:58):
What are your favorite hotels resorts that can be a
classic city property? Private island resort. Whatever it is, I
want to know what do you love? What type of
resort do you seek out and what do you think
we should feature on future episodes of travel that matters?
Shoot me an email at Bruce. At Kirk Kokum, you
(20:18):
can send an audio file. You can send text, whatever
it is, I want to hear from you and hear
what places you love most. We'd like to thank Mr
Bailey for joining us today on travel that matters. For
more information about the Brando, the Teddy Arua society and
his other projects, please check out our show notes or
(20:40):
visit Kurt Kokum. The show was produced for Kurt Commedia
by A.J. Moseley and Doris Stone, Music by Joey Salvia I,
Bruce Wallen, and we'll see you down the road.
S3 (20:59):
Kurt Commedia. Media for your mind.
From critical media. What is the world's best hotel? Today
we're going to introduce you to a private island paradise
that could absolutely lay claim to that title. Stay tuned
because travel that matters Best Hotels and Resorts series kicks
off right now. Hello, everybody, and welcome to travel, that matters.
(00:36):
I'm your host, Bruce Wallin, and this is the podcast
where we explore the world's most exceptional and meaningful travel experiences. Today,
we are going to talk about a place that combines
those two elements of travel about, as well as any
place on Earth. We're doing things a little differently today.
This episode kicks off a new mini series where we're
(00:58):
going to showcase the world's best hotels and resorts. Now
I get asked all the time what my favorite hotel is,
and you know, that's a very difficult question to answer,
of course. But all of my potential answers really come
down to places that do things differently. You know, it's
a given that the best hotels and resorts are in
(01:18):
a great setting. They have a warm and welcoming staff,
beautiful guest rooms. But the places that really stand out
the most for me are the ones where the experience
is something that you've never experienced before. Our focus today
is one such place, but it's one with a far
more interesting back story than most. I'm talking, of course,
(01:39):
about the Brando, the highly exclusive retreat on Teddy ROA,
the private atoll off of Tahiti that was once owned
by Marlon Brando, and today is popular with everyone from
celebrities to ex U.S. presidents. Now, when we talk about travel,
that matters. Of course, a big part of that is sustainability.
Whether it's environmental sustainability, cultural sustainability, all the ways that
(02:03):
travel can make a positive impact on environments and communities.
But long before most people were talking about sustainability in travel.
Marlon Brando had a crazy idea about building a resort
that did more good than harm. Yes, The Godfather was,
believe it or not, first and foremost, an environmentalist, and
(02:24):
his ideas laid the groundwork for what is now considered
by many to be the world's finest and most sustainable resort. Today,
we're going to hear from the man responsible for taking
Brando's crazy ideas and actually turning them into an epic reality.
His name is Richard Bailey, and he's the founder of
Pacific Beachcomber, which, in addition to the Brando, runs the
(02:46):
luxury resorts throughout French Polynesia. He's also the founder of
the nonprofit Teddy Arua Society, and he has dedicated much
of his life to protecting the environments and cultures in
the South Pacific. After hearing from Richard, stick around because
I want to hear your picks for the best resource
on the planet and share a few of my own.
But first, let's go to Richard, who one day more
(03:07):
than 20 years ago got a call from French Polynesia's
most famous resident.
S2 (03:14):
Arlen called me out of the blue in 1999 to
find out if possibly I could give him a hand
on his island. And I think what he had in
mind was marketing or something. And so I took out
some engineering guy's food and beverage. We took a team
over to have a look, and it really wasn't a
(03:35):
pretty picture. He hadn't been back in a long time.
And so I sent him a long memo about how,
you know, we don't we take care of guests. We
don't worry about if there's going to be power or
water or how to handle waste. And now really the
all of the things that you need to worry about
on a on a remote island like Pedro or I
(03:56):
became very upset and we didn't speak for a long time. Eventually,
he called me again out of the blue and said, OK,
what would you do? You're the smarty pants hotel guy.
So tell me what you would do. So I said, Well, man,
we could talk about that, but I've some ideas. And
he said, No. Now, tell me right now you think
(04:19):
you know it all and the now? I don't know
it all. But where you're going right now on the
island is maybe not the right way. And eventually we
know that kicked off a series of meetings over five
years where we tried to conceive a vision of what
would work from a tourism standpoint, but would also meet
his very high criteria. And the fact is, Marlon, he
(04:42):
was maybe the world's first Earth champion. I mean, we
were talking about issues that today we know in the
popular vernacular is sustainability and sustainable development. These words, we
didn't have these words back then, but he understood that
he didn't have power, he didn't have water. He didn't
know how to handle waste. He didn't know what to
(05:05):
do with trash and how to recycle and and are
really are our common vision was about really how to
harness science and technology to to solve some of these problems.
And the vision that we ultimately realized was just tackling
each one of these issues one by one and saying
how we could do it better.
S1 (05:27):
When the brand of finally opened in 2014, it became
clear pretty quickly that Richard and Marlon had done it better.
I was the editorial director at Robb Report back then,
and I'd commissioned a writer named Lawrence Strobel to go
to this brand new resort and cover it for our magazine.
Global had actually been the TED era before it was 1978.
(05:47):
And he was visiting Marlon Brando to interview him for
a story for Playboy magazine. It was right before Apocalypse
Now is coming out. And Brando hadn't granted a personal
interview in years more than a decade, but Cromwell spent
10 days with him on this at all. And one
of the things he wrote about was how Brando didn't
want to talk about Apocalypse Now. He didn't want to
talk about Hollywood. He certainly didn't want to talk about
(06:09):
his love, life or anything like that. All he wanted
to talk about was Teddy Arrgh, its natural beauty, the
people of French Polynesia. He also wanted to talk about
his plans for developing it into a resort. So incredible
went back in 2014. He was highly skeptical that the
Brando would measure up to its namesake dreams.
S2 (06:32):
Yeah, I remember Larry's visit. In fact, Larry and I
spoke on the phone and he said, I'm coming down.
Bruce is asking me to come down and see your place,
but I got to tell you I know what Marlon wanted.
I was a little bit defensive. I said, Yeah, Larry,
I think I know what he wanted to sell. Come
on down or compare notes Marlon. Had he had an
(06:53):
idea not just for technology and a vision for his island,
but he had a he had an idea of what
experience visitors should have on his island. And he imagined
a kind of a symbiosis where the beauty and the
and the highly preserved nature of the place attracts people.
But in visiting, you not only don't have a negative
(07:17):
impact on that beauty or on that cultural authenticity of
the Polynesian people, you actually have a positive impact and
you create a positive feedback loop for sort of a
virtuous cycle where just by being here, you're contributing to
the preservation of the site to the preservation of Polynesian
(07:38):
culture and to maintaining the beauty of the place. So
the idea of tourism being not only not a neutral
or negative factor, but being actually a positive factor. For example,
when we first sat down, we talked about energy and
he said, I don't want to have any fossil fuel
on the island. And so I said, Well, Marlon, that's great.
(08:01):
But forget about air conditioning because that takes way too
much energy. And he said, no. Now go see this
guy in Hawaii, Dr John Craven at the National Energy
Lab in Kona, and he'll show you how we're going
to do that. So we built the world's first seawater
air conditioning system and then for electricity, we have solar,
(08:22):
which is our main source of electricity. And we have
battery storage. So we're able to go about 20 hours
a day without using any kind of thermal production. For
thermal production, we use coconut oil, which is a perfectly
legitimate fuel. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and
their growth cycle, and that CO2 is released during combustion,
(08:45):
so it's a carbon neutral fuel. So basically, when you
come to the Brando, your carbon footprint during your stay
from an energy standpoint is zero.
S1 (08:57):
Instead of being disappointed, Greubel called the resort a masterpiece,
and of course, it has been receiving a similarly effusive
accolades ever since. So what is it about the Brando
that makes it so special? It starts with the arrival.
S2 (09:16):
We run a little airline called air to air, and
we have twin turbo prop aircraft that hold 15 passengers.
And we have our little private lounge and so you're
whisked away from the busyness of the international airport to
our little lounge and actually you're your brand of experience
starts in our lounge because there we have information, we
(09:38):
have videos and we have a nice, calm, quiet place
to gather yourself for the experience that it's about to come.
The flight itself is 15 minutes. So as soon as
you take off from Tahiti, you can basically see kitchen
roll on the horizon. The reef barrier is pretty effective
(09:59):
for ocean craft, and so the only way to get
here is by air. So you disembark and you're greeted
by some musicians and dancers, and you're going to go
directly to your villa. And within 25 minutes from having
left the lounge in Papic, you're on the beach ready
to ship your first flight time.
S1 (10:24):
We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be
right back to talk more about the Brando.
S3 (10:34):
On medicine, we're still practicing joined Dr. Stephen Takeback and
Bill Kurtis for real conversations with the medical professionals who
have their finger on the pulse of health care in
the modern world. Available on all your favorite podcasting platforms.
Produced by Kurt Commedia.
S1 (10:53):
Welcome back to travel that matters where Richard Bailey is
telling us all about the guest experience at the Brando.
S2 (11:01):
So we have obviously we have snorkelling galore. We have
the whales, we have the sea turtles. If you've never
been during the hatching season, we have sea turtles that
are actually hatching. The hatchlings are crawling out of their
nests right in front of you, villa. And this is
for many of our guests, especially those with children. This
(11:24):
is a transformative experience. This is something that they'll remember forever.
We have kayak tours on the lagoon. We have picnics.
I mean, this this this entire atoll, except for the
built environment that we have here on this one module,
this one islet. The Ayatollah is composed of 12 islets,
(11:45):
which we call motors' anti-Asian, and only one of them
has any construction. All of the others are a sanctuary.
We have jungle walks basically on the other most used
to look at the giant coconut crabs and flora and
fauna of these islands. We have visits to some of
the archeological sites. We have picnics on remote motors' where
(12:08):
there's just nothing. I mean, today getting to a place
where there's nothing where you don't see anybody is a luxury.
We have green tours. We have an amazing spa. We
have these treatment rooms that are up in the tree
canopy and there's a lot to do.
S1 (12:27):
One thing you won't find at the Brando overwater bungalows, guests,
the guest rooms on stilts that sit over turquoise lagoons
that are pretty much synonymous with Tahiti and Bora Bora
do not exist at the Brando. Why? Well, that's the
way Marlon wanted it.
S2 (12:47):
Another issue that Marlon and I discussed very early on.
I mean, I I built resorts, and if you do
what I do, you dream of having a place like
tequila as a canvas to express yourself on. I told
my island the first time we sat down that we
have to build overwater bungalows. We're going to build overwater
bungalows over here. We're going to build them over there.
(13:09):
You've got this amazing the gun we're going to build,
lavorato or gunners everywhere. And he said, No, we are not.
That's wrong. We're actually not going to build any guests
at our resort should be able to walk around this
island without encountering any obstruction, physical or visual. And we
(13:30):
don't want him to have to cross any kind of
walkway or have their view obstructed by these bungalows out
on the horizon. And he said, anyway, they're not that private.
When you're in your overwater bungalow, that's not so private.
You can wave to the guy that's on the overwater
bungalow right next to you. His point was that everything
(13:51):
should be blended into the landscaping, into the nature. We
set everything back more than 35 metres from the beach.
So when you're on your terrace in your villa, somebody
walking along the beach, they don't see you. They don't
invade your privacy.
S1 (14:08):
Guess at the Brando stay in one of 35 villas,
each with its own private beach area and plunge pool,
which is one of the many reasons the Brando has
become so popular, with guests eager for an escape from
prying eyes. But privacy has long been paramount on Teddy Iroa,
which was a private retreat for two Haitian royalty for centuries. Today,
(14:30):
in addition to the Brando, the toll is home to
a local community that is core to the resort experience
and is yet another example of how Richard and Marlon
thought differently
S2 (14:42):
just by being here. We have finally finished surveying most
of the island, and we've uncovered over 100 points of
sites of archaeological interest on the atoll. The atoll of
pitcher oil was the exclusive retreat for teachers and kings
for hundreds of years. And we know this by studying
(15:02):
the archaeology that we found and the logbooks of the
early explorers like Captain Cook and Captain Bougainville are are
replete with references to pitaro. And in fact, in Captain Cook,
Second Voyage had to wait at Anchor in Tahiti for
three months for the King to come back from zero
before he could designate the place where the Marines would
(15:25):
go ashore and set up their fort. The community on
Pedro is the one that we built, which is perhaps
the greatest challenge of our project. And not only did
we had to build a greenfield development on a remote
off the grid resort with neutral carbon impact and a
(15:45):
laboratory and so forth and so on. We have a
tremendous social experiment because we have a hundred and eighty
workers living here, and you know, what did they do
in their off time? They need to have a life here.
And it's like when I first sat down with Marlon,
he said, we're going to build a beautiful resort. And
he said, No, don't think that way. We have to
(16:06):
build a community. If we don't build a community, we
will fail. And probably the thing that I'm most proud
of today is the shared values of all of our staff,
all of our employees, your manager. You can talk to
anybody on this island and they will have something to
tell you about how special it is and and their
role in helping to protect it.
S1 (16:29):
Protecting the atoll and the environment at large is a
primary focus of the teddy iroa society. Guests at the
Brando had the opportunity to interact with the organization's scientists
and experience the research firsthand. And for Richard, his wish
is that the Teddy Arua society's research has implications far
(16:49):
beyond the Brando.
S2 (16:52):
We established Ted Hero Society, which is a platform, it's
a laboratory, you know, with sleeping accommodations for visiting scientists.
We don't do research ourselves, but we invite scientists who
come from all over the world studying a wide variety
of of subjects from things involving climate change, such as
(17:15):
ocean acidity to species, populations and coral and fish and
coconut crabs and sharks and you name it. So guests
are able to wander over and see what the scientists
are working on. They can go out and actually gather
data with the scientists if they want and learn something.
(17:36):
And at the same time, by staying at the Brando,
the Brando is financially sponsors the laboratory. And so we
have this tight relationship between tourism and science to help
perpetuate the beauty of the of the place and Asian culture. Obviously,
we need to protect the oceans if we're going to
(17:58):
have any impact on climate change. And conversely, we have
to correct climate change if we want to protect the oceans.
So it's a systemic problem. And out here in the
middle of the Pacific, I mean, Titian's didn't cause climate change,
but they're going to pay the price. And out in
the big oceans where we are as opposed to a
(18:19):
long continental coastlines, this is the real canary in the mine.
This is where when things start happening here, then we
really do have to worry as to how to Brando.
Marlin Sun once said, Save Tetreault, save the world. If
we can't save one island, how are we ever going
to save the world? So our approach is actually microcosmic.
(18:44):
Our approach is to start with our society. If we
can make teterboro a model of how to do things
to effect change, then perhaps and that's a baby step
toward solving the larger, bigger problems.
S1 (18:59):
Solving the world's problems at one of the world's best resorts.
It does not get much better than that. And that's
what travel that matters is all about.
S3 (19:12):
And now for the wall and wrap up.
S1 (19:15):
Wow, what a way to kick off our new miniseries
about the world's best hotels and resorts, the Brando Richard Bailey.
So great having him on the show. Now I have
to admit I've never been to the Brando, but I
have been to a lot of great places that I
would put in that category one of the world's best
hotels and resorts. I'm thinking about, you know, safari lodges
(19:36):
in Africa, Duba Plains or cylinder camp adventure lodges in
South America, like the Explorer camps or Tierra. Of course,
I'm also a sucker for wonderful beach resorts, just like
everybody else lost salamanders, which is just down the road
from me here and on Mexico's Pacific coast. But I
don't want to just hear about my choices. I want
to hear yours. What are the places that you love?
(19:58):
What are your favorite hotels resorts that can be a
classic city property? Private island resort. Whatever it is, I
want to know what do you love? What type of
resort do you seek out and what do you think
we should feature on future episodes of travel that matters?
Shoot me an email at Bruce. At Kirk Kokum, you
(20:18):
can send an audio file. You can send text, whatever
it is, I want to hear from you and hear
what places you love most. We'd like to thank Mr
Bailey for joining us today on travel that matters. For
more information about the Brando, the Teddy Arua society and
his other projects, please check out our show notes or
(20:40):
visit Kurt Kokum. The show was produced for Kurt Commedia
by A.J. Moseley and Doris Stone, Music by Joey Salvia I,
Bruce Wallen, and we'll see you down the road.
S3 (20:59):
Kurt Commedia. Media for your mind.
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