Outrigger’s Gold Coast MD to take up executive role in USA
Outrigger Hotels & Resorts’ Gold Coast-based Managing Director for Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, Dave Lawrence will relocate to the company’s Honolulu headquarters in July ‘06 to focus more closely on the group’s overall Asia Pacific expansion.
Mr Lawrence moved from Hawaii to Australia in 1998 when the international hotel group first crossed the Pacific to take up the management rights of the $70 million Outrigger Sun City Resort in Surfers Paradise.
The hotel group has since enjoyed solid growth under Mr Lawrence’s direction, leading to the company’s presence in Australia’s premier coastal tourist centres, along with New Zealand, Fiji and Bali.
Outrigger now operates 14 resorts in the South Pacific with a further six, under or due to start construction in Melbourne, Darwin, Bunbury, Airlie Beach, Port Douglas and Bali.
In his expanded role as Senior Vice President Operations, Mr Lawrence will continue to oversee and drive Outrigger’s growth throughout Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, while adding Outrigger resorts in Guam and Tahiti to his portfolio. He will also help to grow Outrigger’s condominium resort division in Hawaii.
Outrigger will draw upon Mr Lawrence’s extensive local industry and market knowledge to secure footholds on existing and emerging South East Asia destinations in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines.
While Mr Lawrence will maintain a regular presence on the Gold Coast, his new Hawaii-based appointment will enable greater synergies between Outrigger’s international business and marketing divisions to capitalise on future expansion opportunities in and around the Asia Pacific rim.
“Outrigger is entering a new era of growth in the US and I am looking forward to the challenge of leveraging this growth and identifying potential international joint venture partners that will benefit from our on-going expansion throughout Australia and the Asia Pacific,” Mr Lawrence said.
Graham Muldoon
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