The potential new owner of the Whakapapa ski field has expressed interest in operating the famous Chateau Tongariro hotel.
The building located near Mount Ruapehu was shut indefinitely in February 2023 due to its high earthquake risk.
Whakapapa Holdings has expressed interest in redeveloping it and running the hotel.
Its director Tom Elworthy said it was an integral part of the tourism offering around the Whakapapa Village and the national park area.
“It’s quite a material number of beds during the off season for the summer tourism operation both on the mountain but also the Tongariro Crossing and mountain biking.”
It would be very difficult to replace the chateau with a building of that scale, economically, he said.
Elworthy said it was hard to say how much it would cost to fix the earthquake-prone hotel due to them not being able to access it.
That was understandable as negotiations were still underway with the departing tenant for the building, he said.
He was optimistic the company could restore it.
“We have seen some structural drawings, we have had some of our guys look at it — we aren’t too confronted by it.”
Elworthy said the agreement would need to be a long term lease at a peppercorn rental rate.
Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton told RNZ that there had been a number of people interested in redeveloping the property.
“It’s not unusual for people to come forward and show some interest.”
Kirton said, from what he understood, there was another party seriously interested in the hotel.
“We are dealing with another party that has progressed fairly well last year to engage with the government over the future of the Chateau.”
The mayor wouldn’t reveal any other details of the party due to it being confidential.
He said the council’s interest was in seeing the Chateau back open.
Kirton told RNZ that a petition the district council had created, calling for it to be saved, had more than13 thousand signatures and would be submitted to parliament in the next two months.
“The idea is to actually just ensure that the government are aware that there’s a lot of interest in this facility and we want to see a future for it.”
rnz.co.nz
