The lucky winner of the tropical island resort, who until yesterday was only known as Joshua - click here - , is a self-confessed goofy tax accountant with MST TAX in Wollongong.
Josh Ptasznyk, who has a Snellen chart for his name and spent most of his short working life filling out tax returns, may have no hospitality experience but the 26-year-old is about to take charge of more than a dozen staff at a resort on the Micronesian island of Kosrae.
He, together with his 25-year-old financial planner friend Nick, spent $129 on three raffle tickets and walked away with a family’s 16-room Kosrae Nautilus Resort and associated scuba diving business — both fully staffed and debt-free.
“What started as a simple click of a news article during my lunch break that piqued my interest has resulted in a life-changing experience that I could only dream of”, he said.
“I would like to thank Doug and Sally and the whole Beitz family for providing this amazing opportunity and am looking forward to cutting the red tape, making a trip to the resort to see what paradise looks like, and to experience all that the resort has to offer.”
Of course, old habits die hard and for some time Josh may still look at his newfound paradise from an accountant's point of view:
Methinks, before he moves to his personal patch of sand, he may get luckier still, just like the chappie in this story.
P.S. Two years later, Joshua is still at it but it's not all wine and roses as this Tripadvisor review of August 2018 - one bad one among a host of very good ones! - testifies: "Stay elsewhere! Used to be very adequate. The New owner (who won the hotel in a raffle) is incompetent and culturally insensitive. The hotel is run down and falling apart. Phone broken. AC didnt work. insect infested. Restaurant ran out of food." - see here.
