Dinosaurs turn Coolum resort into fossil

THE once-stylish Hyatt Coolum is now a monument to bad taste.

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THERE'S little doubt Queensland's Hyatt Coolum Resort was in need of refurbishment when Clive Palmer bought the property two years ago.

But unless he engaged Fred Flintstone as a consultant, it's hard to understand how Palmer identified a dinosaur shortage as its most pressing problem.

Last year former Coolum boss Maurice Holland gave an interview to the Sunshine Coast Daily, his first since the mining magnate ended Holland's almost two-decade tenure as general manager.

"If Mr Palmer wants to develop the place, I say good luck to him," Holland said. "What people are looking for is entertainment and as long as he doesn't do anything really crass . . ."

GALLERY: The Palmer Coolum resort

Crassness, of course, is a subjective notion; so there may well be people who think an 8m-high Tyrannosaurus rex snarling at golfers who haven't parked their carts properly is a stylish addition to what was once one of Australia's finest resorts.

Some may enjoy the giant crocodile being assembled by saurian construction workers outside my room; others, perhaps, will thrill to the prospect of another 100 soft plastic dinosaurs being dotted around a purpose-built park.

I'm just not sure many of them will be five-star travellers.

I last visited Coolum 16 years ago. Holland, then in charge, is acknowledged as one of the few truly world-class hoteliers in Australia, and his mastery of the business was evident in the resort's assured, understated elegance and the sophisticated guests it drew from all over the world.

That may sound elitist; but there's an argument that if your cheapest room is $300 a night, you are trying to attract the elite. And Coolum's occupancy rates, now reportedly dipping into single-figure percentages, suggest the elite finds giant dinosaurs repellent rather than attractive -- a prehistoric Aerogard to keep away the wealthy.

The great hotels of the world have a personality of their own, reputations built through the years, their traditions gently burnished by invisible, all-seeing professionals. But Palmer doesn't play by those rules. He paid an estimated $80 million for the place, and he doesn't want you to forget who owns it.

The Palmer Grill sits above the clubhouse of Palmer Golf Australia. Own-brand yellow and black signs shout that golf membership can be had for $400; others dotted around the resort boast the Grill serves FANTASTIC FOOD.

You enter via the lobby, whose imposing doors are flanked by portraits of Palmer in front of an image of Titanic II, his project to re-create the doomed liner.

To the left is the snooker room, although the wall of photos of Palmer with various celebrities -- look, there he is with Bill Clinton, there with Kevin Rudd -- is more reminiscent of Darryl Kerrigan's pool room.

Below the row of happy snaps are portraits of the winners of the Australian PGA, played here from 2002 until last year. Just as well the PGA has now decided to remove its tournament from Coolum to Royal Pines on the Gold Coast, as there wouldn't be room for any more winners amid the Palmers.

Another wall is decorated with newspaper cartoons of Palmer; rather endearingly, it doesn't seem to bother him that some are quite scathing.

On the hotel TV, there are three Palmer channels: one continually shows the ABC's Australian Story about him; another details the Titanic II project; the third -- well, I admit I didn't pay much attention to it.

I didn't eat at the Palmer Grill; instead I walked past another half-dozen restaurants, all open, all brightly lit, staffed and pretty well empty at 8pm. As I sat down in the last one, the only other couple was leaving. "Quiet night?" I asked the waiter.

"This is crazy busy compared to what it's been like," he said.

Like all the other staff, he was charming and eager, though there is a gallows humour among some of the older hands, who have seen so many of their colleagues lose their jobs. "It was never like this under Mr Holland," said the driver of one of the resort's shuttle buses. "You wonder if it can ever be the same."

At 8.45pm I did a lap of the other restaurants on site; they were still empty, but now they were dark, as was most of the resort. You'd expect more lights in Pyongyang.

Mini-estates of villas lie silent; in the morning kangaroos sit on their terraces, bemused to see another species walk by.

The only place that was busy was the gym, where members of the Queensland State of Origin team were training. They couldn't have picked a better place to escape pryingeyes.