Covid 19 coronavirus: Queenstown Kamana Lakehouse hotel remains open to individual guests

A Queenstown hotel has been kept open throughout the Covid-19 lockdown just to care, for free, for a treasured Belgian guest.

Luce Wilsens, 89, has stayed at Kamana Lakehouse, formerly the Aspen Hotel, for all but the past 30 years.

Wilsens’ flight back to Switzerland last month was canceled the day before, as airlines landed planes due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

Kamana’s general manager Mario Sandulescu says they decided to let her go through the running of the bulls, even though the hotel was closed, “because we knew how fragile she was and we knew that moving her would be a big problem.”

The hotel had three employees, including a chef and a front desk manager, to take care of her.

“We didn’t keep it open to make money,” says Sandulescu.

“We haven’t charged him money, but after closing we have to do it, he’s also a lifesaver for us.”

Wilsens says the hotel has been very nice to her, “they really pampered me.”

Although he could have taken a plane back to Switzerland in July, he decided to stay and experience his first winter in Queenstown.

That’s because there’s a good chance that he couldn’t have come back here in September in time to celebrate both his 90th birthday and the 30th anniversary of his first visit here, with his local friends.

Now he won’t go home until next April.

Ironically, New Zealand Immigration initially wanted her out of the country in December, after making it extremely difficult to extend a three-month visitor visa.

• Covid19.govt.nz – The official government Covid-19 advisory website

However, after lobbying with local MP Hamish Walker, friends from Queenstown, two legal attorneys for AWS and Mountain Scene, he changed his mind.

He walked around and gave him a two-year visitor visa.

– Mountain scene