Building a tropical resort in Northern Germany

Where do you find a tenant when the world's largest self-supporting building suddenly becomes vacant? You think outside the square! That's what Malaysian businessman Colin Au did. He decided to build a tropical paradise with X Y and Z, and create a holiday destination for the locals who wanted relief from the cold and grey weather in Germany. "Not many people do not have enough time or money to go on extensive holiday trips abroad. That's when I had the idea for Tropical Islands." A former cruise line operator, Au reversed the principle of cruising: Instead of taking people to the tropics, he took the tropics to where they were most needed.

The failure of an ambitious bulk air carrier project in Germany in 2003 has become the catalyst for one of the most interesting tourist destinations on the planet.

The CargoLifter AG was in the process of building a zeppelin-like semi-rigid airship capable of carrying enormous loads directly from their point of manufacture to the point of destination, without ever touching the ground.

Seen by some as a flying crane, had it reached market, it would certainly have been handy in the recent Tsunami relief operation - with a payload of 160 metric tons, and a range of up to 10,000 km, just one of the CargoLifter CL 160 could have transported enough food to feed 25,000 people for a fortnight.

It was not to be and when financial problems set in, the massive CargoLifter-Airship hangar in Brand, an hour's drive from Berlin, stood for many months without a tenant - after all, not many companies have a need for the world's largest self-supporting building.

Constructed with the sole purpose of building the massive Carglifter airships, the building is truly gargantuan with five million cubic metres of interior space. By example, it is tall enough to contain the Statue of Liberty standing upright, the Eiffel Tower on its side or to envelope the entire Louisiana Superdome with room to spare.

The structure is 360 metres in length, 210 metres wide and 107 metres high.

The originator of the Tropical islands project was Malaysian-based entrepreneur Colin Au, the former CEO of Star Cruises, a leading cruise line in the Asian-Pacific region. He surveyed the needs of his future visitors closely and designed the offerings of the Tropical Islands Resort accordingly.

The Tropical Islands Resort finally opened on December 19, 2004, a 24 hour-a-day holiday destination with an ever-pleasant 25°-28° centigrade climate and a tropical habitat of warn water, exotic plants and palmtrees.

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