Navini Island Resort Ltd - Lautoka, Fiji

The ancestors of Navini’s current mataqali used Navini as a resting place. People who wanted to visit the chief on the nearby island of Malolo would come to Navini to wait for their calling. While waiting, their names would be noted or attached to a tree. The Fijian word vini means to be noted or attached, hence the name Navini.

In the early 1970s, Arthur and Helen Reed brought their family to the Mamanuca Islands for a holiday. Enjoying the remoteness, they found that it was the perfect place to relax and spend time together as a family. Hearing that it was possible to lease land for residential purposes, Arthur approached the mataqali. Navini was the second island that he was shown and he discovered that it was an ideal place for a holiday home, being uninhabited as well as  

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surrounded by a sandy beach and coral reef, so it was decided to go ahead with the lease. At the request of the mataqali, just before the signing the lease was changed to tourism and the idea of the resort was born.

Being more of a home than a resort, Navini has always been kept small and personal. Arthur and Helen’s daughter, Simone now runs the resort and has called Navini home for three decades. The wonderful staff are more like family than employees, and many have been on Navini for 15 years or more… some for nearly as long as the resort has been operating!