Savaii Lagoon Resort, Fagamalo, Savaii Island

Bruce & Margaret McCallum (Owners) with Andi & Fofoga Kreutz (Managers)

Savaii Lagoon Resort is a fairly new resort designed and built by Bruce McCallum, with the main aim to provide employment for a local extended Samoan family and also for the local community of Fagamalo, Savaii.

In addition, filtered and ultra violet treated water has been installed from which not only the resort but also the whole village benefits. In fact, some people come from outlying villages to collect the water for their personal use.

The motto of Savaii lagoon resort is "Cleanliness and friendliness" and you will find that this resort lives up to its motto, and much more!

Provides income streams, skills and employment opportunities for the local community; works to help preserve and educate travellers about the local cultures; and provides safe drinking water for the local village.

Savaii Lagoon Resort is the only resort in Samoa developed with foreign capital and then handed over to the customary land owners for their entire benefit. When Bruce and Margaret McCallum decided to build Savii Lagoon Resort, apart from providing clean, safe and comfortable accommodation for their guests, they did so with three key objectives in mind:

a) To provide an income stream, skills and employment opportunities for the village of Fagamalo. Bruce himself physically worked on building the resort and he used the local labour of about one dozen Samoan men to assist him. He passed on his skills to those workers as the buildings progressed. In fact, many of those skills, like tiling floors or even building towel rails and toilet holders, have been used by those workers in other buildings since.

b) To preserve Samoan customs and culture, village demonstrations of daily life are held on request for guests, when the numbers are sufficient. We encourage our guests to get involved with and protect the local customs and cultures of Samoa, so we hold regular "village life demonstrations' which include preparation of flax for Samoan baskets, basket weaving, preparing medicines and sweets and fire making".

c) To provide safe drinking water for the resort and local village. It is said that many of the elderly and children no longer become as sick as they did before they implemented this. In addition, Bruce is setting plans in motion to assist in providing safe drinking water for the surrounding villages also.

"Our staff are all from the local village and we have installed a water filtration and ultra violet treatment plant that provides safe drinking water for our guests and the entire village. This has significantly reduced the previous levels of sickness, particularly among the children and the elderly."