Hilton plans new $30m hotel for Auckland at national horse sales centre

How the new hotel at Karaka could look.

A new $30 million hotel is planned for south Auckland at a national horse sales centre.

Guy Phillips, Hilton's senior vice president of development for Asia and Australasia, said a DoubleTree by Hilton was planned for Karaka.

A management agreement had been struck with New Zealand Bloodstock and the new hotel will be developed at the NZ Bloodstock Sales centre, 30 minutes south of Auckland's centre, he said.

The hotel on Hinau Rd would be 120 rooms and construction would start in the third quarter of this year with a target completion in 2020. Restaurant, bar, gym, pool, two meeting rooms, he said.

Andrew Seabrook, NZ Bloodstock managing director, said that business was pleased to work with Hilton to bring the new brand to Karaka.

"Our international clients, globe-trotting tourists and local travellers alike will be able to take full advantage of our existing facilities including a variety of conference and event spaces, and world-renown thoroughbred auctions," Seabrook said.

The Karaka sales centre hosts four big week-long sales annually, attracting buyers from Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Macau, South Africa, Philippines, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, United Arab Emirates and beyond.

So a full-service hotel was needed to meet guests' needs when they visited Karaka or went to meetings at NZ Bloodstock, a statement said.

"Beyond these sale periods, the Karaka Pavilion turns into a major meeting and events centre; featuring beautiful gardens and informal indoor and outdoor spaces," the statement said.

Seabrook said already having the land was the key to the project.

"It's a beautiful 16ha property we have here. It's got huge potential to be so much more, including a wedding facility. We've had boxing matches, we're shooting a film scene here, we've had TV commercials made here and product launches," Seabrook said.

"In January alone, we book out 400 rooms in the city, so we thought it would be great to have all our guests stay here on site. We turn over more than $100m in a week during January alone. So we thought the potential to grow the venue as a conference, wedding and function centre was massive. Independent research we had done suggested a hotel would be the best use and the proximity to the airport is an added bonus. We see it as being the best hotel between Hamilton and the Auckland CBD," Seabrook said.

The resource consent application has been applied for and is being processed. he said. The construction tender is yet to be let. The hotel would be worth around $30m on completion, he said.

DoubleTree by Hilton hotels are in Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown so the Karaka property will be the fourth in New Zealand.

Colliers International said last year that Auckland's hotel room supply was shrinking while demand continued to rise, potentially putting New Zealand's tourism growth at risk. The company's national director of hotels Dean Humphries said: "We simply don't have enough hotel rooms in our current inventory to cope with this level of growth in the tourism sector. If immediate solutions are not found, it is unlikely we will continue to grow at current levels."