ONCE upon a time Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort and Spa was the premier holiday haven in the country.
And after a $100 million refurbishment, resort general manager Francis Lee said the Yanuca Island property was ready to set new standards in terms of infrastructure, activities and service delivery.
“It is true in some way Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort and Spa used to be number one and I think people have used us as a benchmark,” he said.
“We have set a good precedent and very good standard for people to follow. If I am not wrong, when we first came in 50 years ago, we were the first five star international hotel and people looked at us as somebody to look up to and follow.”
Mr Lee said since then a number of hotel chains had come in, used Shangri-La’s Fijian as the standard and established themselves.
“So what we have done is looked at our very beautiful grand old dame and touched her up and gave her a little bit of makeup and made her really beautiful now.
“And with the complete renovation and refurbishment of all restaurants, rooms and facilities we are at another level now.
“And on top of all that, we have added on a lot of activities that were previously not available in Fiji like the water park, the transparent kayak and a host of other activities — we are at a whole new level as a tourism destination.”
Mr Lee said his team had done competitor studies with Coral Coast and Denarau properties.
“We have found that Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort and Spa is among the best in terms of delivering guest experiences and we comparable to any property in Fiji.”
