Pacific

Announcement soon on long delayed Cook Islands hotel project

13:12 pm on 2 August 2011

A New Zealand company has confirmed it's planning on turning the old Sheraton Hotel site at Vaima'anga in the Cook Islands into a five-star hotel.

Work on what began as the Vaima'anga Hotel on Rarotonga in 1987 stopped in the 1990s after a series of financial problems.

Recent attempts by other New Zealand developers, the Tepaki and McEwan Groups, to revive the project and also build a second hotel on Aitutaki failed when those companies collapsed.

The Mirage Group signed a deed of lease last year and director Simon Herbert says an operator announcement and start date could be made in the next month.

He says the plan is for a five-star hotel on the site.