Waking up to the beauty of Samoa

MARK WILSON/The Press

SUNSET OVER SAVAI'I: the view from Aggie Grey's Resort on Upolu.

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Mark Wilson explores the different strands of tourism in Samoa.

Tourism in Samoa has two strands. One is the cheap-and-cheerful island experience of a beach fale, like a Kiwi bed-and-breakfast (with dinner, too) but in a thatched hut on the beach, mattress and mosquito net supplied. There will be a restaurant bar serving Vailima beer, fish and coconut milk will be on the menu, and a three-guitar band will strum in the corner.

The other strand is the upscale resort, with a spa for the ladies and big-game fishing for the blokes, childcare for families, a pool bar and restaurants, and a mandatory fiafia, or fire-dancing performance.

Both strands have prospered against a backdrop of steadily rising visitor numbers, up from 73,000 in 1996 to nearly 116,000 last year. New resorts have opened; older ones have splashed out on new pools and luxury units. There is even a golf course, a magnet for many US and Asian tourists, although it still has only nine of its 18 holes open.

Samoans don't need to be told why people want to come to visit. To them it's just gravity. They have occupied this group of islands in the north of the Polynesian triangle for 3000 years – three times longer than anyone has lived in Aotearoa – and quite simply see it as the centre of the universe.

Over those three millennia they have evolved a communal, family-based village culture with a complex and quite rigid hierarchy that ensures food is harvested, villages kept tidy and no-one goes without.

Underpinning the Samoan way of life is the bounty that nature has provided in the form of tropical fruits and vegetables, and fish – because you can't have a hierarchy without a surplus to feed it.

To the casual observer, driving through village after well-groomed village, it can seem a Gauguin idyll. The tiled floor of a large, brightly coloured fale provides cooling comfort in the noon heat, now that the village matai have finished their fono, or meeting.

Breadfruit, banana and coconut trees are heavy with fruit. Bunches of pandanus leaves dry in the sun in preparation for being woven into fine mats, central to many of the Samoans' rituals. Pigs, dogs, chickens and children roam free.

Every 10km or so, up looms an incongruously large church, which will be full on Sunday of either Catholics, Methodists or Mormons, depending on the local flavour of Christianity.

There is a dark side, of course, which shows up in mental-health statistics and suggests village life is not for everyone. And plenty of young Samoans, filling out forms at the New Zealand High Commission in Apia, want to try their luck in the big city of Auckland.

As competition brings cheap flights and deals on accommodation, word is getting out about Samoa as a destination. For the tourist seeking simply an escape, the safe, secure feel of Samoa acts like a warm bath. Crime is low. There is none of the political upheaval that has dogged other Pacific nations. The exchange rate is good. And everyone is just so ... polite, even in the markets.

One New Zealand couple I meet by the pool at Aggie Grey's, in Apia, had holidayed in most places in the Pacific until coming to Samoa for the first time three years ago; now they won't go anywhere else – "We just love it," they say, even though their friends teasingly ask why they don't just holiday in Otara.

Fishing and diving are established attractions, and so is surfing for those experienced and brave enough to tackle the reef breaks. Now, some travellers are realising that the size of Samoa's two main islands and the network of accommodation options along the way makes cycle tours feasible, provided you bring your own bike.

None of this increased appreciation of what Samoa has to offer comes as a surprise to the Samoans, of course – they found out all about that 3000 years ago.