Outrigger Into Bali; Reveals Five-Year Plan

Earlier this month, Honolulu-based Outrigger Enterprises Group said it would invest the proceeds of its sale of hotel-management rights in Australia and New Zealand in Asia and the Pacific. Last week brought word of the company's first step back into the market under this initiative—management of a luxury Outrigger-branded property in Bali.

The Outrigger Panorama Bali Resort & Spa, a $45 million 170-unit luxury development on the BukitPeninsula, will open in the first quarter of 2009.

This is just the first component of Outrigger's plan to plant its flag in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific.

In an exclusive conversation, Mel Kaneshige, Outrigger Enterprises Group's executive vice president-real estate and development, gave Travel Agent a glimpse of how Outrigger sees its future.

"We hope within the next five to eight years to have anywhere from ten to fifteen Outrigger-branded properties in the area added to our portfolio," Kaneshige says. "We do want to continue to grow as quickly as we can, consonant with the available opportunities and markets," he adds.

Within Australia, for example, Outrigger would like to have properties in gateway cities and leisure destinations in the deluxe category with 100 or more rooms, Kaneshige says. In Australia, Outrigger is looking at such destinations as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, the Gold Coast, the SunshineCoast and New South Wales. In New Zealand, its focus in the near term is Auckland, Christchurch and Queenstown. "In Asia, we are looking at five-star luxury resort properties," Kane-shige says; Phuket, Koh Samui, Hainan and Okinawa are on the radar.

"Our continued development throughout the Pacific Asia area will concentrate on the Outrigger brand," Kaneshige states.