Fairfield buys Kona resort units
By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer
Fairfield Resorts Inc. said yesterday it has bought 76 condominium-style units at Royal Sea Cliff Resort on the Kona coast, and Outrigger Enterprises Inc. will continue to manage the property.
Fairfield Resorts Inc. photo
The acquisition is the second in a marketing and development partnership announced in July between Fairfield and Outrigger, parent company of Outrigger Hotels & Resorts.
Fairfield Resorts Inc., the world's largest time-share company, has purchased 76 condominium-style units at Royal Sea Cliff Resort on the Big Island's Kona coast. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
Fairfield, a vacation ownership company with more than 450,000 owners, did not disclose terms of the acquisition.
Fairfield said it will spend about $3 million on renovations during the next six months and that the first units would be ready for occupancy next spring. Sales could begin by the end of the year, pending state registration.
Royal Sea Cliff Resort has 154 units and has been managed by Outrigger since May 2001. The property has until now been run as a hotel and the remaining units are being sold as condominium units.
"In the time-share industry, there's a huge demand for Hawaiian inventory," said Bob Albertson, Fairfield chief operating officer.
"For a lot of people on the Mainland their dream vacation is to come to Hawai'i and there's really not enough product here to meet that demand," he said.
Fairfield is also constructing a sales center at the Outrigger Reef Hotel in Waikiki and expects to hire 50 to 80 sales and marketing employees.
"We're pretty pleased that the partnership is coming together as we hoped," said David Carey, Outrigger president and chief executive. The time-share market is seen as more stable than the hotel business as people travel less and stay closer to home. "Post 9/11, Kaua'i — which has a lot of time-share — has had pretty stable occupancy because it's already bought and paid for," Carey said.
Fairfield and Outrigger plan to continue to expand their time-share properties, and are also considering building new time-share resorts in Hawai'i five to 10 years in the future, Albertson said.
"We'd like to have properties on all the islands," he said. "We have a fairly large appetite."
