$5M facelift for Vacation

Press, 21 January 1983, Page 4

$5M facelift for Vacation

Christchurch’s Vacation Hotel in Colombo Street will receive a $5 million facelift next year, courtesy of the Chicago-based hotel chain, Hyatt International. The company's area director in New Zealand, Mr Peter Daetwiler, said yesterday that details of the refurbishing project were not finalised, but would include exterior and interior alterations.

Hyatt will take over the management of the hotel, and another being built in Rotorua, within a year. The Hotel Continental and the Queenstown Vacation Hotel will be taken over next month. Mr Daetwiler said that architects, designers, and engineers were “working like mad” on plans to improve the Christchurch hotel but that work was not due to

begin until the Rotorua hotel had been completed and those in Queenstown and Auckland had been renovated. Vacation’s seven other hotels in New Zealand will also get management assistance from Hyatt. Management and stafftraining courses will be held in each outlet. Mr Daetwiler said that thestandards demanded by New Zealanders had risen because of the high volume of overseas travel.

“Twenty years ago, people were happy with a slice of roast beef on a bun, and a beer. Now they want a threecourse meal,” he said. It cost money to create new standards, he said, but it would be recouped because a high standard increased the "spending willingness of the people.”