Le Méridien Lindeman Island Resort & Spa

Le Méridien Lindeman Island Resort & Spa is due to open in September 2027 on a 70-hectare beachfront parcel of Lindeman Island, in the Whitsundays, reviving a Club Med site that has stood empty since Cyclone Yasi forced its closure in 2012. Owner Well Smart Group is investing AU$60 million in the resort as part of a AU$583 million island revitalisation, with La Vie Hotels & Resorts operating under Marriott's brand. The 209-key resort will be Marriott's first in the archipelago and the first Le Méridien in Queensland.

The place

The resort takes a 70-hectare parcel with wide private beach frontage on Lindeman Island, one of the 74 islands of the Whitsunday Passage inside the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, off the central Queensland coast. Access is by boat, roughly twenty minutes from Hamilton Island Airport, which is the practical gateway to the archipelago and takes direct flights from the Australian east-coast capitals. Much of Lindeman Island is national park, so the resort footprint sits within protected bushland rather than a developed shoreline.

The concept

Lindeman Island is a rare case of a Great Barrier Reef resort that simply stopped: the Club Med that occupied the site closed in 2012 in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi and the island has lain dormant since. Singapore-based investment company Well Smart Group acquired it in 2023 and committed AU$583 million to a staged revitalisation of the island, with reopenings phased from 2026. The resort itself represents an AU$60 million transformation of the former Club Med buildings, and it will open in September 2027 under Marriott's Le Méridien brand, operated by Australian management company La Vie Hotels & Resorts. The deal matters on two counts beyond the building. It is Marriott's first resort in the Whitsundays, an archipelago whose luxury and upper-tier supply has been held by a small, largely unchanged set of names for decades; and it is the first Le Méridien in Queensland, as well as La Vie's first collaboration with Marriott. The programme runs to 200 guest rooms and nine suites, two restaurants, a lobby lounge and bar, function space, a resort pool, a fitness centre, an Explore Spa by Le Méridien, tennis courts, a kids club and an activities centre covering water sports, indoor golf and archery. Because the resort reopens under a genuinely different brand and operator rather than under its old identity, this guide treats it as a new opening rather than a refurbishment.

Dining & wellness

Two restaurants are planned alongside a lobby lounge and bar. Wellness centres on an Explore Spa by Le Méridien, the brand's own spa concept, supported by a resort pool and a fitness centre. Activities extend to tennis courts, a kids club, water sports, indoor golf facilities and an archery range.