| Business: WARWICK EYES MORE NEW OPPORTUNITIES |
Samoa, Cooks and Santo on the radar
Elenoa Baselala
It is not just the sun, sand and sea that’s drawing Richard Chiu to the South Pacific but the warmth and generosity of its people.
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Vanuatu’s Le Lagon Hotel... one of Warwick’s many hotels.
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This is why the owner of the Warwick Hotels wants to expand his hotel chain from three hotels to at least eight by 2010, an expansion which is expected to cost him around F$170 million.
At the moment, Warwick has two hotels in Fiji—the Naviti Resort and the Warwick Fiji Resort along the Coral Coast and the Le Lagon in Vanuatu.
Work has already begun on finding further opportunities in Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Tonga and Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu.
Vice-president of the Warwick Hotels in the South Pacific, Jamal Serhan, who spoke to Islands Business about their plans, said: “We have been here in Fiji for almost 30 years and we have committed ourselves to the South Pacific.
“The South Pacific is one of the safest places you can travel to, it has a rich culture, mother nature beauty and the genuineness of the people is just incredible.
“You don’t see any culture like what you see in the South Pacific any more in the world. It’s a great business opportunity, it is a very safe place and has not been touched.
“In the United States for example, you have jungles of concrete. But here in the South Pacific you have a jungle of mother nature—that’s what people seek—and the people in the South Pacific have the right attitude with the clientele and customers.
“People are very curious about the South Pacific—those in South America and even those from the Middle East,” says Serhan, who is Lebanese.
Not surprisingly, Fiji with 550,000 visitor arrivals per year is the best performer for Warwick Resorts in the South Pacific.
“There have been talks of this year being a bad year because of certain issues. But then you can’t always have a good five years straight—it’s the nature of the business.
“This is just a soft year, we are really in a good shape based on what’s going on around the world,” Serhan says.
As such, the Warwick has not backed out on its plan to expand the Warwick Hotel property in Fiji with an additional 40 villas, each with their own swimming pools.
The construction of the villas is expected to cost around F$22 million and should begin any time soon.
The hotel chain has also leased an additional piece of land nearby. But plans for this have not been finalised.
It is envisaged the development could be used to either build condominiums, residential villas or another hotel.
In Tonga, Serhan reveals they have secured leases for two islands facing each other in Vavau.
“No plans have been made on what to do there but we expect to create different concepts—may be a four-star resort on one island and a 5-star on the other,” he says.
For the Cook Islands, the chain is still looking for land.
“Because it is a small island, it is very difficult to get land because it is divided into very small sectors. If you want to lease a piece of land, you would have to talk to three to five different people to create enough land so you can really build on it.
“As you know, our style is not building a small hotel, almost all our hotels have more than 100 rooms,” Serhan says.
Le Lagon in Vanuatu is currently undergoing a major refurbishment worth around F$10 million.
By 2009, the hotel will be expanded to 220 rooms with the number of workers increasing from 200 to around 265.
The 75-acre land owned by the resort near the golf course will also be subdivided into residential lots.
“Unlike Fiji, whose governments had worked hard to promote tourism in the past, the other South Pacific countries are just picking up.
“Visitor arrivals to Vanuatu in a year is around 110,000. The country has only one airline and one plane. But it is good that Virgin Blue is flying there now, which should change things in time,” Serhan says.
While Warwick has a property in Samoa—the Vavau Bungalows—plans are in place for a 5-star resort on the same land.
“We are working on our master plan, which has been finalised but not yet approved by our president (Chiu). We are thinking of having a ground-breaking ceremony in Samoa by June next year.
“Our goal in Samoa is to build around 120 villas—again it would be a 5-star hotel.
“The funny thing is that the area we’ve leased is called Vavau, it has a beautiful landscape, a magnificent lagoon and you have fresh water coming from the cliffs.
“When you walk down to the beach, you can feel cold spring water on your feet—it creates a good balance with the warm sea water.”
The site in Vavau is about 45 minutes from Faleolo Airport, but Serhan confirms they are also looking for land near the airport to build an all-inclusive hotel like Naviti.
This is expected to be constructed within the next three to four years.
“Vavau Samoa will be built in three stages and will cost around A$35-A$40 million.
“With 90,000 visitors a year, Samoa will absolutely have a great future in tourism, because it’s hardly been touched. There’s no competition there except for Aggie Grey’s.
“We will be bringing our brand and strength of marketing, we have existing relations with sellers in Australia, New Zealand and we do not need to go to them to convince them who we are anymore.
“Samoa is a clean country, it has proud people who are well educated, they are respectful people and they groom their gardens well—that was the first thing that struck me when I went to their country,” Serhan says.
It expects to employ around 250 people when the hotel is built. Serhan says they will do a lot of training with trainers from their existing hotels in Fiji and Vanuatu.
“We don’t mind taking people who are ‘green’ because they have no bad habits yet and they do not complain much.
“Here (Warwick Fiji) we have had villagers who have never worked before and who could only write their names. But we take the time to teach them skills.
“We look at everybody equally regardless of whether they are skilled or not. Most of the time we have people in the wrong places because these people had applied for a certain job simply because it was a job opening.
“I hardly have any expats in my hotels because I believe locals can do the job. I don’t have problems with skills but I make sure that my managers spend time training the workers.
“I started off as a cook when I was studying architecture in the States. I have been there and I know how it feels when you are not noticed.
“For Samoa, our challenge we have been told is that some villagers do not speak English, so we would have to find an English teacher. But that should not be a problem, we will teach the people to our standards.”
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