Denarau Island’s occupancy rate stands at 90 per cent this week as there is focus on bringing this to100 per cent next year.
According to Denarau Corporation Ltd general manager Nesbitt Hazelman, for the past two years, Denarau Island was like a ghost town.
“It’s really good to see the tourists out, walking on our footpath, walking to the port, walking back and making use of all the facilities that are available on the island,” he said.
“So in the future, what we see is we’ve got two more sites for hotels that should come online in the next year or
so.
“And that will sort of bring the hotel or the island itself to full capacity in terms of the hotel spaces, so another at least 1500 to 2000 rooms.
“We’re trying to encourage the owners of these properties to move forward with their projects.”
Mr Hazelman said during the downturn they had used that time to push forward a lot of their capital projects.
“So if you come to Denarau now, you’ll see new roads are in place, they’ve all been established.
“They have been operational, we’ve re-done five bridges, fauna and flora, we brought it all up to speed.
“So we use that time to actually get back and fix some of the things that look very tired on the island.”
Altogether these projects cost close to $3 million, according to Mr Hazelman.
He said they were grateful to their stakeholders for going in that direction and they would see the benefits now.
Mr Hazelman said the Denarau Corporation Ltd was the body corporate for Denarau Island.
“We have various precincts that work within the ambit of Denarau Corporation Ltd and obviously one is the role of residential properties on the island.
“The other is the commercial area down at the port Marina, the golf and racquet, the industrial area, and the hotels, which is the largest stakeholder on the island.”
