“A comedy of errors performed by clowns” – Tepaki

Hotel owner Tim Tepaki has labeled as a fiasco, his hotel operator Rarotonga Resorts Management putting out an advertisement for a new general manager using The Rarotongan Hotel logo and CI News having to apologize for it. Tepaki said,“ It’s a comedy of errors performed by clowns”.
Tepaki told the Herald on Wednesday morning that for the last two years he and his fellow investors at Manuia Beach, Castaway Beach and Lagoon Lodge hotels have suffered losses and they now wished to take possession of their hotels and rescue the operation. He said the operator had agreed to exit the hotels at the end of May but he had asked them to stay on while he and fellow investors looked at alternative management options, including the option of splitting up the hotels and returning to the good old days of previous owner/operators operating the hotels successfully.
Tepaki said the explanation he received from the operator on this incident was that local staff did not know of the owners’ plan to rescue the operation and therefore took it upon themselves to advertise for a new general manager without director Robin Eggleton knowing. He said the advertisement was stopped when they realised it was the owners call to appoint a new general manager and not the operator.
Tepaki said the operator, Rarotonga Resorts Management, has explained that it was a simple case of miscommunication between senior management and middle management but Tepaki thinks it was mischief making, as he had already stated publicly he was looking for an operator.
Asked if staff would lose their jobs over the incident, Tepaki said, “Not likely” as he and his fellow owners simply wished to turn around the fortunes of their hotel investments and to that end they would need the existing staff.
Tepaki told the Herald he had passed on his personal apology to Tata Crocombe for this embarrassment and while CI News certainly owed Tata an apology for mistakenly using his logo, he didn’t think his operator deserved an apology from CI News, as the operator should not be placing advertisements in the paper without referring to the owners!

By Charles Pitt

Herald Issue 463 10 June
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