Today, From Tahiti Presse:
Economy : 02/01/2008 at 6:09PM
3-hotel project announced for Moorea Golf Course

(Tahitipresse) - A five-star, 150-room deluxe hotel run by Warwick International plus a three-star, 130-room hotel and a residence hotel are planned for development at the Moorea Green Pearl Golf Course, promoter Jean-Louis Grégori announced this week.

This would make the Moorea site the only international golf-hotel complex in French Polynesia. The only other international links, the Olivier Bréaud International Golf Course on Tahiti's south coast, has no deluxe hotels next to it or in the immediate vicinity.

The announcement of the hotel construction and the arrival of Warwick International by French language daily newspaper La Dépêche de Tahiti comes following the opening late last year of the back nine holes of the 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Design course near Moorea's small airport.

According to Grégori, Richard Chiu, president of Warwick International Hotels, plans for the Moorea facility to be among seven big hotels envisioned for the Pacific region. There already is the Warwick Resort on Fiji's Coral Coast and plans for two more hotels in Fiji, the Warwick-run Le Lagon Resort and plans for a second hotel in Vanuatu. There are also plans for two hotels in Samoa and a beach resort in Tonga.

The Warwick International hotel planned for Moorea will cost some eight billion French Pacific francs (US$101.9 million/67 million euros), Grégori told La Dépêche.

But the golf course development also includes two other accommodations on two different pieces of land that Grégori announced he had sold to a group of investors from French Polynesia and New Caledonia. One piece of land is 25,000 sq. meters (nearly 270,000 sq. ft), part of which is next to the lagoon. The other piece is 70,000 sq. meters (nearly 754,000 sq. ft.) and is located within the golf course, he said.

The construction of all three accommodations is expected to begin soon, Grégori told La Dépêche.


ATP