Hotels in for tough times

By Tom Clarke


AUCKLAND is going to have thousands of hotel rooms on tap by early next year and hotels will be competing hard to fill them, says hospitality and tourism specialist Graeme West.

Mr West, returned from living in the United States, has just become director of sales and marketing for the luxury all-suite Metropolis Hotel which opens in downtown Auckland on December 1.

He says that filling hotel rooms should not be a problem over the period of the millennium celebrations and the America's Cup (which finishes next March), but it will be a tough market later.

As at last May there were about 5200 hotel, all-suite and serviced apartment rooms available in Auckland and by December this year, he says, there will be about 7000.

"There's no question it's going to be tough, but we're hoping that our positioning at the top of the market will hold us steady," he says.

"There are a lot of people, particularly those from the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom, who want luxury accommodation and top-quality service, and who have the money to pay for it. We are passionate about quality and service, and we plan to set new standards for the hotel industry in Auckland.

"After living in the States for so long, you get used to very good service and coming back to New Zealand has been a bit of a shock," he says.

"Auckland has come a long way from where it was 12 years ago and a lot of places really have stepped up their service, but it's still a long way short in most cases of what you get in other parts of the world. That's going to be a key area of difference for us."

Mr West says the New Zealand tourism market is building again, and while he's expecting a competitive market after the cup, he is confident the Metropolis will do steady business as visitor arrivals increase.

As well as an increasing number of tourists from Australia, Asia and the United States and an increasing number of people coming here for international conferences, there are always special events happening in Auckland that will also attract visitors, he says.

The Metropolis will also be tapping the New Zealand and Australian corporate travel market and the domestic consumer market as a source of business. Mr West says one of his tasks will be to communicate to Aucklanders the fact that the Metropolis is a major luxury all-suite hotel, and not an apartment building.

He puts an apparent confusion down to the effectiveness of the marketing of the apartment suites, 315 of which are individually owned but leased back to the hotel. About 30 will be owner-occupied, and they have their own separate entrance. The hotel lobby entry is in the old Magistrate Court building.

Mr West is an Aucklander who has worked for the last 12 years in the tourism industry in the United States, the last three of them with a major Los Angeles-based wholesaler and tour operator.