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Pro-invest Group has relaunched its Queenstown hotel as voco Queenstown. The hotel was previously Holiday Inn Express & Suites Queenstown, and it has had a refurbishment covering all 227 guestrooms and suites, a redesigned arrival area and Great Room, and a new restaurant, Mozzarella & Co.
The hotel was already one of the group’s strongest performers, so Pro-invest didn’t need to build new. Chief executive officer Tim Sherlock says the aim was to push an existing hotel into a more premium market.
Tim Sherlock, chief executive officer of Pro-invest Group says “Queenstown has always been a special asset for us as the owner, developer, asset manager, and former operator. The hotel is now operated by Connect Hospitality. The fundamentals were there from the beginning: an exceptional location in one of the world’s great tourism destinations featuring incredible views, distinctive architecture and a building with real presence. Just as importantly, it had proven itself commercially and was already one of the strongest-performing hotels in the portfolio.”
That success raised a new question for the owners.
“As the hotel matured, we could see the opportunity had become bigger than the original proposition. The question moved from whether we could reposition it to whether we should. We had a very good hotel in an extraordinary destination, and we believed the experience inside the hotel could go further in reflecting the character, quality and energy of Queenstown itself,” Tim says.
“That gave us a clear vision for its next chapter. Through voco, we could build on the fundamentals we already knew worked, while creating a more premium, destination-led experience. We rethought the arrival and Great Room, introduced a much stronger food and beverage experience and brought more of Queenstown into the hotel through local materials, art and cultural storytelling.
“We had the right asset, in the right location, and an opportunity to take it to another level.”
Pro-invest can’t say what the work cost, but Tim says, “However, what I can say is that we already had a relatively young, high-performing hotel with very strong fundamentals, so we could be precise about where we invested and where we could make the greatest difference to the guest experience.”
Every room got attention, but Tim says guests notice the biggest changes as soon as they walk in.
“The refurbishment touched all 227 guestrooms and suites, but some of the most transformative changes are the ones you see and feel when you enter the hotel. The Great Room and arrival experience were completely reimagined, the meeting facilities were enhanced and we created Mozzarella & Co., with its open show kitchen, wood-fired pizza oven, private dining space and outdoor terrace.
“The Great Room is probably the best example of that thinking. It was a vast space with incredible scale and views, and the design team has made it feel much warmer and more intimate through furniture, lighting, texture and a series of smaller spaces within it.”
He puts that precision down to the way the group is set up.
“That’s where the strength of Pro-invest Group’s integrated model really comes through. We can bring investment, design, development, asset management and operations around the same asset and be very deliberate about where capital goes and what we want it to achieve.”
The group hasn’t released occupancy or room-rate figures since the relaunch, but Tim says the early signs are good.
“We’ve been very pleased with how the hotel has performed since the relaunch.
“What makes that particularly encouraging is where we started. This was already a strong-performing hotel. We believed there was another level of opportunity if we could align the brand and guest experience more closely with the strength of the location and what we were seeing in the Queenstown market.
“That was the conviction behind the move to voco Queenstown, and the early response is reinforcing it. For Pro-invest Group, it’s a great example of the value that can still be unlocked in an asset that is already performing well.”
The refit is also aimed at a wider mix of guests.
“Queenstown has an extraordinary ability to appeal to different travellers, and we wanted the hotel to make much more of that,” Tim says.
“The repositioning allows us to broaden the appeal of the hotel across leisure, corporate, meetings and group demand, while giving people a much richer and more premium experience once they arrive. The upgraded meeting spaces, private dining, outdoor areas and new restaurant and bar all contribute to that. But the bigger change is really in how people can use the hotel.”
He describes a hotel guests spend time in, not just sleep in.
“You can come back from a day in the mountains and sit by the fire. You can meet friends over dinner at Mozzarella & Co. You can bring a corporate group together to stay, meet and dine in the same place. And the public spaces now have enough warmth and personality that spending time in the hotel becomes part of the Queenstown experience itself.
“For us, that means more ways for guests to experience the property and a hotel that feels much more connected to the destination around it.”
Pro-invest is now looking at its other hotels in the same way, though Tim says no two are alike.
“We’re constantly looking across the Pro-invest Group portfolio for where the next opportunity to create and unlock further value might be, and Queenstown is a great example of what can happen when the right ingredients come together.
“But every asset starts with its own story. We look at the location, the market, the customer, the existing product and brand, and where we believe there is further potential.
“In Queenstown, we had an established track record, an exceptional location and strong underlying demand. We could also see a very clear opportunity to bring those fundamentals together with a more premium experience, and voco was the right brand to help us do that.
“That’s the lens we’ll continue to apply across the portfolio. And I think Queenstown is a good reminder that some of the most interesting opportunities in real estate can be sitting within an asset you already own. Sometimes it’s about knowing that asset well enough to see what else it can become.”
