Guam to get Ohana hotels in October

By Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writer

Outrigger Enterprises will debut its Ohana Hotels in Guam this fall, marking the budget-oriented brand's first foray outside Hawai'i.

Outrigger Enterprises’ Ohana brand will include two budget-oriented hotels in Guam starting Oct. 1. Outrigger Enterprises

The Regency will close Oct. 1 for a $3 million property-wide renovation, Outrigger said, and will reopen May 31, 2002, as the Ohana Bayview Guam. The Hotel Sunroute is a full-service hotel and condominium resort with standard rooms and two-bedroom units with ocean views.

Both properties are owned by the Ysrael family, which owns real estate interests throughout the island, including the Outrigger Guam Resort.

Hawai'i's largest hotel company launched the Ohana brand in December 1999 to differentiate its upscale Outrigger properties from the company's more modest, off-the-beach hotels. The experiment started with 15 hotels in Waikiki, and branched out to the Neighbor Islands earlier this year with the Ohana Maui Islander. Ohana made the Big Island's Keauhou Beach Resort its second Neighbor Island property Aug. 1.

The company said from the beginning that it would monitor the brand's progress and decide whether to expand. The Guam hotels will be Ohana's first attempt at a market outside Hawai'i.

"The major market for Guam is Japan," said Outrigger chief executive officer David Carey. "It's 85 or 90 percent. And there is a segment of that market that is more price-conscious. They want to experience the shopping, but they don't want to pay to be on the beach. Just like here. The model is very, very similar."

Outrigger entered the Guam market in 1999 with the 600-room Outrigger Guam Resort, which the company says is one of its top-performing hotels.

If Ohana does well in Guam, Carey said, the company will consider expansion there, though the two new properties give the brand more than 300 rooms on the island.

Outrigger is also considering adding Ohana hotels in Australia, Carey said, where the company has been placing Outrigger-brand properties at a rapid pace.

"We've had a lot of discussion about Ohana in Australia," Carey said. "We're exploring some of those opportunities and thinking about it. We'd like to see Ohana in places we already have Outrigger, where we can capture the benefit of both markets."

With the addition of the Guam hotels, 18 properties fly the Ohana flag. Between the Outrigger and Ohana brands, Outrigger Enterprises operates or has under development 40 hotels and condominiums in the Pacific, representing nearly 12,000 guest rooms. Outrigger controls about a third of all the hotel rooms in Waikiki.