A rendering of the Outrigger Guam Resort, to open in 1998.
Outrigger Hotels

Being developed at Tumon Bay, Guam's resort area, the hotel is tentatively called the Outrigger Guam Resort and is scheduled to open in 1998.

"I think it's really our goal to be a dominant player in the Pacific resort areas," said David Carey, president and chief executive officer of parent company Outrigger Enterprises Inc.

The Guam property identifies Outrigger as a major player in the field, he said. It will be one of the Royal Outrigger properties, marketed as the top level of the Outrigger-managed resorts.

Owned by Tanota Partners, a company controlled by members of Guam's Ysrael family, the Tumon hotel is part of a four-phase project that will also include 120,000 square feet of retail space for internationally known brands as well as Liberty House and Crazy Shirts from Hawaii.

The hotel complex will be home to the first Hard Rock Cafe in Guam and the entire property is across the street from the huge Duty Free Shoppers complex at Tumon Bay, Carey said. A Planet Hollywood restaurant is also being built across the street.

For Outrigger, with 29 hotels and resort condominiums under its wing, mostly in Waikiki, the Guam deal is part of the isle-based company's shift to open up a vast new market in the Pacific Rim.

The Pacific tourism market west of Hawaii is largely Asian, now led by the Japanese but also attracting a growing number of Koreans, Taiwanese, Chinese and other Asia-Pacific residents.

Outrigger's role with its Pacific partners is to provide technical advice and guidance to the developers of hotels in the area, provide management services and help with marketing, Carey said.

Outrigger provides hotel owners with access to its worldwide sales and reservations network, he said. Already taking advantage of that network are:

The Outrigger Marshall Islands Resort, a 150-room hotel which opened July 31 at Majuro in the Marshall Islands, 2,285 miles southwest of Honolulu.

And the 165-room Outrigger Palau Hotel, which is expected to open in mid-1997 at Koror, Palau.

Last year, when the plans for the Palau property were announced, Outrigger said it foresaw as many as 20 Outrigger hotels in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, Outrigger continues to expand in Hawaii.

The company recently purchased a Waikiki hotel it has managed for more than 10 years, the 101-room Outrigger Royal Islander on Kalia Road.

"We're interested in protecting fee-simple properties in Waikiki," Carey said.

He declined to discuss the price or other details, citing a confidentiality agreement, but said the Japanese owner, Chitose Inc., had wanted to sell for various reasons.

It was logical that Outrigger should be the buyer, Carey said.