Kuta, Bali · 2011–2014 · sold
Troppo Zone Puri Rama Resort, Kuta: the Bali hotel Adrian Campbell ran at 22
Most Australians his age were going to Bali for schoolies. Adrian Campbell bought the hotel they stayed in.
Buying a hotel at 22
Adrian Campbell had loved Bali since family holidays as a boy. In 2011, aged 22 and with a solar company running back on the Gold Coast, he bought the Puri Rama Resort in Kuta and relaunched it as Troppo Zone Puri Rama Resort. He refurbished all 88 rooms, built the pool bars and hired about 80 Balinese staff.
Kuta in those years was the centre of the Australian schoolies trade, and Troppo Zone became one of its best-known resorts, sold as an exclusive schoolies package. For three years, every November and December, it was full of 18-year-olds from Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane celebrating the end of school.
What running it involved
A resort of 88 rooms is a small town. Housekeeping, kitchens, bars, maintenance, security, bookings, suppliers and the relationships with the banjar, the local community council, all have to work at once, in a language the owner did not yet speak. Adrian learned it on the floor: Indonesian first, then the rhythms of Balinese life that shape a hotel's year, from temple ceremonies to the quiet of Nyepi, the island's day of silence.
He also learned what a good general manager does and what happens without one, which is a lesson that cut both ways.
What it cost
The resort took everything he had, including his attention. To run it he handed the management of International Solar Solutions to outside managers, and that business did not survive the arrangement. He tells that story on the record. It is the clearest example of a lesson he repeats often: never hand a business to people you cannot watch.
What it gave him
Two things, both of which underpin everything he has done in Indonesia since.
The first is the language. He speaks Indonesian fluently and uses it in negotiations with landowners, officials and contractors in Lombok, and at community days in Buwun Mas. He regards it as the best due diligence there is.
The second is an understanding of how Indonesian hospitality actually works. The rental-pool design at Saraya, with a single operator running 154 villas as one hotel, is drawn directly from running 88 rooms and 80 people in Kuta.
After the sale
He sold the resort in 2014. It still trades today under later owners, and some staff from his time are still working there. The Bali connection continued through a portfolio of holiday villas that the same local team has run ever since. The Kuta page covers the town itself.