Outrigger renaming
15 hotels in Waikiki
The new Ohana label will be
By Russ Lynch
designed to market to families
Star-Bulletin
Reinforcing its expansion into top-class hotels in the Pacific and the tens of millions of dollars it has spent on upgrading some of its Hawaii hotels, Outrigger Hotels & Resorts has decided to market its hotels under two brands.
Fifteen of the company's budget-oriented hotels, all in Waikiki, will get a new brand image -- the Ohana Hotels, using the Hawaiian word for family -- with marketing and reservations that start Aug. 1. The hotels' actual name change will be effective Dec. 1.
Outrigger officials said the company is not downgrading the 15 hotels, just concentrating the marketing image on what they are, lower-priced hotels geared toward families.
"It was getting difficult for our customers to understand just what an Outrigger hotel was," said Perry Sorenson, Outrigger chief operating officer. "With the creation of the Ohana brand, our customers now have a clearer idea of what each hotel group represents."
Thirty other hotels that Outrigger describes as "upscale, full-service resort hotels and condominiums" will keep the Outrigger name, which also will apply to the new hotels and resort developments, now open or under development, that Outrigger will manage in Hawaii, Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Australia, Fiji, Guam and Palau.
One of them is the Outrigger Reef, the fourth and biggest hotel that Outrigger founders Roy and Estelle Kelley built, which opened in 1955. The Reef recently went through a $50 million-plus upgrade.
The Big Island hotel that had been the Royal Waikoloan will become the Outrigger Waikoloa Beach. It closed today for a $24 million redevelopment.
The Ohana Hotels brand, including such popular budget hotels as the Outrigger West and the Outrigger Waikiki Surf, will kick off its marketing with a simplified price structure -- three basic prices of $109, $129 and $139 a room -- and also include a "SimpleSaver" rate next year of $99 for all 15 hotels. In December, the 15 hotels will lose the word Outrigger from their titles. For example, the Outrigger Maile Sky Court will become the Maile Sky Court. The names of most of the others will start with "Waikiki."
