Resort's new owners plan to spend millions
A Chinese company which has bought the 1000ha Peppers Carrington resort on the Karikari peninsula in the Far North plans to spend millions of dollars developing its potential.
The new owners aim to promote the resort, which has an 18-hole golf course and 188ha vineyard, to high income Chinese tourists and others at the top end of the international tourist market, extending the present accommodation of 10 lodge rooms and 14 three-bedroom villas as demand grows.
China is already New Zealand's second largest tourism market after Australia, with 222,000 Chinese tourists coming to this country in the past year and a further 100,000 expected next year.
Shanghai CRED Real Estate has paid an undisclosed sum to buy the property from American Paul Kelly, who started developing the resort in the late 1990s.