By NAOMI LARKIN and LIBBY MIDDLEBROOK
For the Thorburn family from Remuera, the takeover of Turtle Island was an unexpected interruption to their Fijian holiday.
Mike Thorburn told the Herald yesterday that he and his wife, Caroline, and their two sons, aged 8 and 10, did not feel threatened but left the island with other tourists for Nadi yesterday.
Landowners took control of the luxury resort on Monday to highlight grievances.
"There was no drama," said Mr Thorburn.
"We were sitting on the beach around 10 pm when some islanders from another island came across and asked us all to go. It was not threatening at all.
"It's just part of life and you can't worry about it."
The family had planned to stay at the resort until Saturday but were last night in a hotel in Nadi. They were due to fly back to New Zealand tomorrow.
Mr Thorburn, who has stayed at Turtle Island Lodge before, said the owners had paid for the guests' boat trip to Lautoka and their hotel costs in Nadi.
Fiji Association President Hafiz Khan said the incident was a big blow to the tourism sector, which had lost millions of dollars since the May 19 takeover.
"It is a slap in the face for whatever plans we had to salvage our tourism industry."
Fiji Visitor Bureau chief executive Sitiveni Yaqona said the Turtle Island takeover was terribly serious for tourism.
The bureau planned to launch a marketing package worth at least $3 million in Australia, New Zealand and the US to try to repair the damage caused by the coup.
Bureau staff had gone to talk to landowners throughout Fiji yesterday to ask them to "be reasonable."
New Zealand's largest Fijian travel wholesaler, Aspac, was inundated with cancellations yesterday as deluxe Fiji resorts that had been relatively unaffected by the coup began to lose bookings.
Under seige: map of the Parliament complex
Images of the coup - a daily record
Footage from the device shows predator’s mouth lined with pulsating gills as it feeds.