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NEW $60 MILLION QUEENSTOWN HOTEL

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April, 2017

Australian private investment firm and hotel developer Pro-invest Group
has this month unveiled plans to build its debut New Zealand hotel in
Queenstown.

Pro-invest intends to establish a Holiday Inn Express® on the corner of
Stanley, Sydney and Melbourne streets in central Queenstown, costing
more than $60 million.

The planned addition of 227 hotel rooms to the resort has been welcomed
by NZs tourism industry.

The hotel will become part of the innovative Holiday Inn Express® select-
service accommodation brand, which caters to leisure and corporate
travellers. The hotels are value-focused and offer high-quality rooms,
professional service and essential amenities at an affordable price,
without full-scale food and beverage facilities.

Tim Sherlock, managing director of Pro-invest Groups development arm
Pro-invest Developments, says Queenstown is the ideal location for a
Holiday Inn Express®.

We are committed to developing a high-quality Holiday Inn Express hotel
that will be a landmark building at the gateway to Queenstown, he says.
One of our key aims is to be the hotel of choice for the area, providing
quality accommodation for the leisure market as well as the corporate
and meetings market with reasonable prices and friendly and professional
service standards.

Comprising 227 comfortable guest rooms located in two three- and four-
level wings, Holiday Inn Express® Queenstown will have a maximum guest
occupancy of 450. Features of the proposed hotel include a fitness centre,
meeting and laundry facilities, and the Great Room  an ideal space for
meetings, cocktail functions and networking  plus a complimentary guest
breakfast buffet and a grab-and-go-style market pantry.

Designed by acclaimed Queenstown architect Preston Stevens of McAuliffe
Stevens, the proposed hotel combines various abstract elements that are
representative of the resorts landscape history.

The architecture is a kinetic interplay of ice and rock, Stevens says.
The underlying concept of referencing the natural landscape will be
instrumental in achieving a design thats a positive fit with the immediate
urban environment and wider natural landscape.

A resource consent application has been lodged with the Queenstown
Lakes District Council. Construction is expected to begin later in 2017 and
it is hoped Holiday Inn Express® Queenstown will be open for business in
2018/2019. More than 750 jobs will be generated during construction and
approximately 15 further jobs will be created for hotel staff on
completion. The hotel will also provide onsite living accommodation for
the majority of its permanent employees.

Once operational, Holiday Inn Express® Queenstown is expected to inject
millions of dollars into the local economy via increased annual visitor
nights and tourist spend, as well as the outsourcing of its food and
beverage to the local market.

National tourism advocacy body Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) welcomes
the announcement. TIA Chief Executive Chris Roberts says: Its great to
see that investors have the confidence in the future of tourism in
Queenstown and New Zealand to embark on a project of this scale. Its
well recognised that there is a need for new hotels to meet the tourism
growth forecasts for Queenstown. This promises to be a valuable addition
to the range of commercial accommodation available in our premier
mountain resort, and will contribute to the industrys Tourism 2025 goal of
growing value ahead of volume to reach total annual revenue of $41
billion by 2025.

Destination Queenstown chief executive Graham Budd says hes pleased to
hear of the new Holiday Inn Express Queenstown development: We are
very supportive of this development and welcome the new Holiday Inn
Express to Queenstown. Queenstown has continued to experience growth
in recent years with strong visitor numbers and expenditure. Total guest
nights for year-end December 2016 were up 8.3 percent compared with
the year before, to 3,506,750. Total visitor expenditure topped $2.1
billion at the end of 2016, so coupled with the strong visitor numbers, we
would anticipate strong demand in the accommodation sector. It is
positive to see continued investment in Queenstown and we welcome the
addition of new hotel capacity.

Sherlock adds: We look forward to working collaboratively with all local
authorities and businesses in Queenstown to achieve a great outcome for
the town and the Southern Lakes region generally by providing a hotel
that focuses on high-quality design with facilities targeted to our guests
needs.

Holiday Inn Express® is a global hotel brand of one of the worlds leading
hotel companies, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). Holiday Inn
Express® Queenstown is part of a comprehensive portfolio of 15 Holiday
Inn Express® properties in Australia and New Zealand which will be
operated by Pro-invest Group under a franchise agreement with IHG.

Sherlock says Pro-invest Group is planning to further expand its portfolio
of Holiday Inn Express® hotels in New Zealand.

We are currently negotiating the acquisition of a site in Auckland and
hope to add further properties in New Zealand in the near future, he
says.

 

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