High profile businessman Mike Pero has joined forces with fellow Cook Islander Tim Tepaki by investing in a unit at the proposed Hilton Rarotonga Resort & Spa, which Tepaki is spearheading.
Pero invests in Hilton Raro venture
High profile NZ businessman and 2003 Pacific Business Person of the Year Mike Pero admits he was stunned by the potential of the proposed Hilton Rarotonga Resort & Spa after a recent visit.
“Whenever I’ve gone back to Raro to relax, catch up with my father (Tom Tamarua) I’ve often wondered if the resort was ever going to get off the ground,” he says.
“But when I finally stopped and had good look around I was pleasantly surprised. There was something there to show me around and I thought it was just what the island needed.”
The site contains the shell of a resort when work started back in 1987 by an Italian-based company which went broke soon after. Attempts to resurrect the project have come in gone until Tepaki’s proposal.6dec07.gif)
Pero signed up to purchase one of the 48sqm suites, and he gained a taste of the suite in a display replica in Auckland to showcase the resort to attract investors to Rarotonga’s first Five-Star Resort, comprising 160 guest rooms and 50 apartments and scheduled to open in 2009. He was MC at the official launch at 10-14 Upper Queen St, Auckland city.
The Hilton Rarotongan Resort & Spa will be located in the south of the island and surrounded by 25 acres of private parks and natural streams.
Cook Islands Prime Minister Jim Marurai sent a message of support for the venture at the launch.
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“We congratulate landowner Pa Ariki and local developer Tim Tepaki for having the vision and commitment and complete the Vaimaanga Hotel, which has been idle for 15 years.
“The government fully supports the Hilton Rarotonga project, as evident from our passing through parliament the Unit Title Act 2005, sponsored by the Tepaki Group to allow investment funds to flow into the country.
“Tim Tepaki said at Takitumu Day that it will take the sons and daughters of Takitumu to complete this project, and so it has proven.”
