Yahoo – AFP,
July 25, 2016
An Australian couple are raffling their tropical resort on a remote Micronesian island, hoping whoever holds the winning US$49 ticket loves warm weather (AFP Photo/ Claudine Wery) |
Sydney
(AFP) - An Australian couple are raffling their tropical island resort and say
they hope whoever holds the winning US$49 ticket loves warm weather.
Doug and
Sally Beitz moved to the remote Micronesian island of Kosrae in the 1990s, but
now want to return to Australia to enjoy being grandparents.
Instead of
selling their 16-room Kosrae Nautilus Resort to a corporate bidder, they have
made it the first prize in a raffle -- to be drawn on Tuesday with tickets at
US$49 each.
"We've
tried to market it in a way where we are attracting people like
ourselves," Doug Beitz told AFP on Monday.
The former
firefighter said he was hoping the winner would be "someone who likes warm
weather, likes meeting new people from around the world, is adventurous".
"It's
a big life change," he admits of living on the tropical island, which lies
north of the Solomon Islands and southwest of Hawaii and is home to about 6,500
people.
The
competition website says the resort, which is popular for diving and fishing,
is debt-free and profitable, and has US$10,000 cash in the business bank
account.
The prize
includes the manager's four-bedroom residence, five rental cars, two 10-seater
vans, a pick-up truck and the resort restaurant, it adds.
The Beitz
family originally said a minimum of 50,000 tickets would need to be sold for
the contest to go ahead but they removed this requirement after the raffle
began attracting global interest.
Doug and
Sally's son Adam said it was his idea to stage a raffle to allow someone else the
chance to live in paradise and run their own business.
"Everyone
has crazy ideas, this one just wouldn't leave me alone," he told
Australia's Channel 7 earlier this month.
"The
thought of selling it in a traditional way is really boring."
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