The Langham hotel rebrands as Cordis Auckland

The Cordis Hotel experience will include a high tea option and new room types. Picture / Supplied

Langham Auckland has a new name - Cordis.

Cordis is a new upper-scale brand of the Langham Hospitality Group, and the 411-room Auckland hotel will its first in the Pacific region.

"The launch ... marks a significant milestone in our long-term growth plan to introduce Cordis Hotels and Resorts here in the Pacific," said group chief sales and marketing officer Simon Manning.

"Cordis is not a homogenous brand ... we want to bring a higher level of service from an upper upscale brand into the market."

This is the second hotel in Auckland to get a new identity over the space of less than a month.

Early in October, the 190-room former Copthorne reopened as M Social after undergoing a two-year building and upgrading work.

Langham Hospitality Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Great Eagle Holdings, taking its name from Langham in London.

A record 3.7 million international visitors came to New Zealand in the September 2017 year.

This number was up 291,100 or 9 per cent from the previous year.

The main contributor was holiday arrivals, up 173,500 or 10 per cent to 1.92 million.

The number of visitor arrivals is projected to grow by about 10 per cent annually.

NZ Trade and Enterprise is estimating that Auckland needed 4000 more hotel rooms by 2025.

"Based on the size of our hotel and large inventory of rooms, we see an opportunity to re-brand it to an upper upscale property to complement the growth of Auckland city and the buoyant tourism environment," Manning added.

A Lincoln University study found that while New Zealand hotel room stock had increased significantly since 2000, so has occupancy.

The yearly occupancy average rose from 65 per cent in 2000 to 79 per cent last year.

The study also found that room rates would likely increase rather than decrease when planned new hotels open in Queenstown, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.

"Many of the new hotels to open are high star-rated international brands who bring with them international levels of service and physical structure, and as a consequence demand higher room rate," wrote report author Dr Anthony Brien, senior lecturer business and hotel management.

Cordis managing director Franz Mascarenhas said the hotel would be "100 per cent renovated", with all guest rooms, suits and lobby refurbished by February.

New facilities and offerings include a new Cordis high tea and Cordis beers at the Lobby Lounge, and new room types.

Free smartphone use, electric bike hire and a kids programme fronted by Cody, a red panda mascot, are also in store for guests.

Guests would be offered free use of smartphones to make free local calls and share their holiday highlights on social media.

Mascarenhas said a new Cordis kids programme and Cody the red panda mascot will be used to welcome children at the hotel.