Local firm buys Alotau hotel

A LOCALLY-owned company has bought off the former Alotau International Hotel in Milne Bay.
Yumi Yet Real Estate Ltd owner and managing director Eke Lama said the hotel, now called Alotau Bay Hotel, is 100 per cent owned by Yumi Yet.
Lama did not state how much the hotel was bought for.
“It was 100 per cent paid off on July 2021,” Lama said.
He said Alotau Bay Hotel was the company’s first hotel, among a list of properties it owned.
The company also own a lodge in Alotau which was opened in 2019.
Lama said Yumi Yet Real Estate employed more than 200 Papua New Guineans and had over 800 rental properties, 600 land titles, four lodges and now a hotel in Papua New Guinea, including a rental property in Cairns, Australia.
Airways Hotel Ltd general manager Sunilkumar Panda confirmed that Alotau International Hotel was no longer a part of Airways Group.
Meanwhile, former Milne Bay Governor Titus Philemon had been critical of the sale of the hotel and questioned how a 16 per cent share in the hotel held by the provincial government’s business arm, Milne Bay Properties, was sold.
“The sale of one of Alotau’s icons, the Alotau International Hotel, to a private interest is a major slap in the face of the people of Milne Bay province,” he said.
Philemon called for an investigation into the sale with regards to how the provincial government’s shares were sold.