Tauranga hotel goes independent

What is currently known as Sebel Trinity Wharf will be no longer when the Tauranga hotel goes independent this June.

From June 26 the Dive Crescent hotel will be known as Trinity Wharf Tauranga when owners Geoff and Shelley Payne terminate their management contract with the Mirvac Hotels and Resorts, owners of the Sebel Brand.


Sebel Trinity Wharf general manager Gary Dickman outside the hotel on Dive Crescent.

Mirvac announced the sale of their 46-hotel portfolio to the French based Accor Hotel Group in December.

Geoff says as part of the original management contract with Mirvac there was a condition giving the owners the option of withdrawing or continuing with the Accor group.

'Rather than just be assigned, we chose to terminate the contract with Mirvac, which left us free to choose a direction.

'Shelly and I will be responsible for managing our own company as opposed to having someone run it on our behalf. We are now responsible for our own staff, rather than having someone doing it for us.”

Trinity Wharf Tauranga will be run as an independent hotel like the Hotel on Devonport in Tauranga or the Bolton Hotel in Wellington.

'It's a little tougher in that you are responsible, but the good thing is we believe there are good opportunities for us,” says Geoff.

'We can make decisions on the spot. We don't have to go back to Australia or if Accor, Auckland and Singapore. So we can make decisions and enact those decisions promptly. That's one big advantage.

'And times are uncertain for everybody, so it's nice to think we are in a position to make a decision. After all it is our business.”

After Accor bought the management and branding rights of Australian-listed Mirvac Hotels and Resorts for $334 million in December, Geoff and Shelly had a look at Accor as part of their options considering process.

Accor operates in 90 countries and employs 145,000. It is one of the largest hotel operators in China, Indonesia and India and operates 15 hotel brands from luxury to economy.

Accor invited Geoff and Shelly to inspect a Queenstown ‘M Gallery' brand hotel and told them the Trinity Tauranga would be similarly branded.

'We were extremely flattered because there are only 50 of them in the world,” says Geoff.

'We were extremely flattered by that as much for ourselves as for our product and staff and for Tauranga to be put in that sort of category.

'They saw when they arrived at the hotel, the location the town and the staff in particular. The interesting thing about that brand is they don't just declare it, it has to be ratified by head office in France.

'So Tauranga can be pretty proud of itself that we have something we can offer the rest of the world.

'All Shelly and I did was put up the building. But it is the staff and the way it's being handled. That's why we are very pleased with the way Mirvac have handled the business over the last five and a half years, but it was no longer an option for us with the business having been sold.”

The 80 local staff will remain at the 120 room hotel, which will remove its international branding on June 26. The Sebel name will come off the building and be removed from all hotel products.

'It's like anything else and particularly with the global period we have just been through, it was a good time to take stock given the circumstances and review the whole scene,” says Geoff.

'We think just at the moment, at this point in time, we feel we are better served by being independent.”

He doesn't think the management groups offer as much, monetarily as much as anything else.

'We can take advantage of that situation and see how it pans out over the next couple of years.”

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1 comment

A state of confusion

Posted on 18-05-2012 07:43 | By EYESPY

Last report was that it was all go with ACCOR now it seems that marriage is off and it is going independent.Very confusing don't seem to have a handle on what they are doing.Mind you that is par for course with Tauranga -could always go into partnership with TCC !!!


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