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Playing with paradise: Defunct Bali golf course another Trump-related fiasco
Nearly a decade ago, the real estate mogul and future US president signed a deal to license his name to a six-star holiday destination intended to displace the Nirwana Golf Resort, one of the world's best.
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In this aerial picture taken on September 1, 2022, shows the 7th hole of the defunction the Trump International golf club and residence, which has been transformed into Pitu Sunset Spots, a beach cafe in Tanah Lot temple tourist destination in Tabanan, since the former US president Donald Trump, was unable to complete the real estate development in 2017.
(AFP/Dicky Bisinglasi)
B
eer bottles and broken plastic chairs litter the fairways of a derelict golf course on the resort island of Bali, where laid-off workers lament the unfulfilled promises of a Donald Trump-related "dream project".
Nearly a decade ago, the real-estate mogul and future United States president signed a deal to license his name to a six-star holiday destination intended to displace the Nirwana Golf Resort, one of the world's best.
But today, the once-thriving golf course is filled with weeds, another failed project related to Trump, whose six casino and hotel bankruptcies spanning two decades have run up billions of dollars in debt and impacted thousands of lives.
"There was no clarity about our future. We heard that we would be rehired, but it never happened," said Ditta Dwi, a 26-year-old former caddy who was forced to take a waitressing job while awaiting a reopening that never came.
The Trump Organization and Indonesian developer MNC Group shut the resort in 2017 and laid off hundreds of workers after partnering to rebrand the Nirwana, which boasts idyllic views of the Indian Ocean.
The planned redevelopment, Trump's first venture into Southeast Asia's biggest economy, was dubbed a "dream project" by his son Donald Trump Jr on a 2019 visit to Jakarta.
Trump's deal to license his name to the new resort and help operate it was first struck in 2015.
