Posted on: Monday, October 15, 2001

Guam sets sights on new luxury hotel tower

By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Guam real estate development partnership expects to build a 400-room hotel tower addition to its Tumon Bay resort that will give Hawai'i-based Outrigger Hotels & Resorts a second luxury hotel to manage on the island.

The planned hotel, a project by Tumon-based Tanota Partners, will complement the 600-room Outrigger Guam Resort. Construction is expected to start next year and finish in 2004, according to Cliff Olson, Outrigger Guam Resort general manager and vice president of the Pacific for Outrigger Hotels.

Olson said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Mainland and retaliatory military strikes in Afghanistan have not affected design work for the project.

A revival in demand for hotel rooms will determine exactly when construction begins, probably sometime next year, Olson said.

According to Bill Henderson, Outrigger's vice president of business development, the agreement to manage another hotel in the U.S. territory is a vote of confidence for the island's tourism industry, which, like Hawai'i, has been hurt by the airliner hijackings that killed thousands in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Hotels in Guam, which depend on Japanese visitors for about 80 percent of business, have seen room occupancies recover to the mid-50 percent range, compared to an average 66 percent this year through August, according to Outrigger and the Guam Hotel & Restaurant Association.

"We wouldn't (agree to manage the planned tower) if we didn't think the market was going to come back," Henderson said.

The tower will have two restaurants, a Mandara Spa, and a banquet and conference center accommodating 1,025 people.