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8 July 2018
Rosie is the leading operator in the high value international meetings and incentives industry in Fiji and has invested in a new state of the art warehouse.
It is located at the Namaka Industrial Subdivision, Nadi. It will be the central operational headquarters for Rosie Events, their division focussed on the operational side of the services for the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) market.
In a company with many “firsts”, this is another one, the first multi-purpose three storey complex to be built in Fiji to cater for the growing and lucrative overseas meetings and incentives market.
The President, Retired Major General Jioji Konrote was the chief guest at the official opening in Nadi yesterday.
The new warehouse will allow Rosie to provide dramatically increased services to the hotels and resorts in Fiji who cater to the MICE market, providing storage in one location of over 250,000 different items and props that Rosie deploys as part of their events theming and management services.
The cost of the land and building was $3 milion and the equipment was an additional $2 million making a total investment of just over $5 million.
Tony Whitton, managing director of the Rosie Travel Group, said the new investment shows their strong confidence in the meetings, conferences incentives and events market.
“Fiji of course is a popular destination for families and honeymooners.
“Yet, three per cent of total visitors to Fiji come as part of this high yielding meetings and incentives market. In fact, a recent study commissioned by Tourism New Zealand estimates that this market on a per visitor basis spends two or three times as much as a leisure visitor,” said Mr Whitton.
“So for Fiji, this is about 30,000 visitors that inject over $100 million into the Fijian economy annually.
“This is fresh revenue streams for hotels, transportation, conference room hire, meal and beverage spend, off site events, excursions and tours.
“In addition to international market, there is also a big local Fiji conferencing and incentive market.
“So our local corporates can also enjoy world class event management and theming,” he adds.
The new warehouse complex will also allow Rosie Events to be housed under the one roof, and will provide improved management capabilities.
Employing a staff of 25 to provide event management, styling, entertainment, off-site theming, team building, wedding services and trade displays, Rosie will add a further 10 specialists to the team.
These people will work in partnership with the major resorts offering large conference facilities, to provide a world standard service to this highly specialised segment of the tourism market.
“In 2017, about 15,000 passengers visited Fiji for official conferences.
“A further 15,000 visited Fiji as part of a corporate organised incentive, or as a reward for staff that have met their annual sales targets and are provided a free holiday to Fiji fully sponsored by their employer.
“It is also a responsible market, often conference and incentive groups will spend a day or half a day working in the community “giving back”, this can be a school, orphanage, village or hospital.
“This year alone, our clients have given back $200,000.00 to schools and local communities as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes.”
About MICE market source
Currently, the MICE market source for Fiji is Australia, New Zealand and the USA but Rosie can expect to see significant activity from new markets.
Last year they handled a major incentive out of China with the Lee Kum Soya Sauce conglomerate, bringing over 1200 delegates to Fiji from China for a five day incentive retreat.
Rosie believes that the Asian markets offer significant new potential with the increases in airline connectivity expected this year.-
Tourism Fiji chief executive officer Matthew Stoeckel while congratulating the Rosie Travel Group, stated that the new warehouse demonstrated Rosie’s confidence in the growing MICE market.
“Fiji has considerable potential to expand its MICE market, but competes on a world-stage for these events,” he said.
Mr Stoeckel added that it was investments such as this that make Fiji more globally competitive and enable Fiji to capitalise on the MICE market.
“We look forward to working with Rosie Events and all our tourism industry partners, in further leveraging the MICE market,” he added.
Brigid Whitton, Creative director of Rosie Events said: “We have to compete with many international destinations particularly in Asia when pitching Fiji to our clients.
“At the heart of our offer are the Fijian people and our culture that is authentic and living.
“From fire walking, to our legends, our respect for our oceans and vanua, are all celebrated in our themes”.
Reports from delegates from the China Incentive stress the authenticity and purity of the environment set Fiji apart from other destinations and have great appeal for the Asian markets.
Chris Green, director of Sales, Conferences and Incentives for Rosie Holidays said
“Technology is also a big part of our investment with a new state of the art cloud-based inventory management system enabling us to instantly view all our 250,000 items and their status in one centralised area from any device and location.
“It also gives our clients access to view our inventory with pricing and display in real time.
“This has been well received by our international professional conference organisers.”
The new warehouse will have a cloud based inventory system that provides until now unobtainable freedom for clients to view the support material readily available in Fiji.
It also demonstrates the confidence that Rosie, a wholly Fijian owned family company, has in the future of the MICE market in Fiji and in Fiji tourism generally.
About Rosie Group
The Rosie Travel Group is a leading Travel Company based in the Fiji Islands.
It operates many award-winning brands, including Rosie Holidays, Thrifty Car Rentals (Fiji) and Ahura Resorts, operators of Malolo Island Resort and Likuliku Lagoon Resort.
The company operates a diverse portfolio of tourism investments, including transportation, inbound tourism, retail travel, overseas wholesaling and hotel resort ownership and development.
The company is 100 per cent Fijian owned and the group provides employment to over 600 people.
[Source: Fiji Sun Online]
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