Labasa will soon have its very first internationally- branded hotel through its partnership with international hotel management brand Ramada Encore who will manage and operate Damodar Group’s 40-room hotel at Damodar City in Labasa. The hotel — to be known as Ramada Encore by Wyndham at Damodar City Labasa — is predicted to elevate the tourism sector in the town and in Fiji’s tourism unit. Damodar Group’s chief executive officer Div Damodar made the announcement this week and in an interview with this newspaper, spoke about the spillover benefits from the development.
“The beautiful part about this is that we strongly believe that this is the catalyst of bringing other brands into Vanua Levu, we are now setting a trend, and we will see that happening very soon,” he said. He said the project would reflect in the town’s economic status especially within the businesses, tourism and employment rate as well as the local township. “This is the beginning of other brands coming into Vanua Levu.
“We’ve seen that in Damodar City Labasa complex, we went and did a $60million complex development and got over 60 tenants, we also got more than 1500 people employed directly and indirectly. “So, with the hotel coming, the brand itself changes everything about Vanua Levu. So today is another level of what we have been planning for the Damodar City in Labasa,” he said.
Mr Damodar said the initial plan did not included the partnership with the Wyndham chain of hotels. He said the plan was to open a hotel that’s part of their bigger $60million development budget and operate the hotel directly by the Damodar management group in the North. “Well first of all we weren’t going to go in partnership with a branded hotel, we were going to operate it ourselves once done with constructions.
It’s just last year when we were approached by the Wyndham group, who said: ‘Hey, we see an opportunity. Should we do this’? “And I said, look we can explore. But when we saw that there was indeed a great opportunity and there just wasn’t any branded hotel there, we, the Damodar Group, decided: ‘Let’s take the step, go further and bring the first branded hotel to Vanua Levu’,” Mr Damodar said.
He said the plan behind the initiative was to attract more investors up North. “When we were proposed the Look North policy, which was an initiative introduced (by the previous government), we went and saw big opportunities. “It was an economy that has always been talked down on.
It had this stigma that there isn’t much opportunity there. But there is massive wealth up there. “We saw a lot of advantages in this.
We believe that other brands will see it too if they decide to also expand to the North which would be a very great story to tell in a couple of years to come.” Mr Damodar, who sees Labasa as self-sufficient, is fascinated by the reactions of the people when the Damodar Group first announced they would expand their business up North. “When we decided to expand to Labasa, I remember the day when we announced it, people were like; why Labasa? Today, we all see what’s happening, it’s fascinating that Damodar City is now in Labasa.
“There is also Extra Supermarket in full operation who are also benefitting the farmers in Labasa by selling their produce. Slowly we are seeing these big brands like S Nagindas who are now expanding to Labasa as well because of our leap of faith. “And then now there is exceptional accommodation that will be offered by international brands, who could have even thought of that?” The hotel is expected to open by the end of this year or the early months of 2025.
Executive Director, Div Damodar says the hotel has 40 rooms including three suites, a swimming pool, an 80-seater conference area, a restaurant, a gym, and a bar which will set new standards in the region to accommodate 80 to 100 guests.Mr Damodar said the hotel is designed to meet the expectations of those who travel for leisure, vacations and those who travel to Labasa for businesses. “I mean flights go back-to-back from here (Suva) to Labasa.
We are comfortable and proud of Vanua Levu and I encourage other investors to look into Vanua Levu and as I said, I’d love to tell the story again next five to 10 years,” he said. He said the Damodar Group would further expand its tourism business and venture into other areas around the country..
