SINPF Hibiscus Apartment offers first world service
Following the certification by the Tourism Department that the SINPF Hibiscus Apartments has met the minimum quality standards set by the department for the industry, the SINPF management presented the certificate to the Facilities Manager, Mr. Geoff Kaka of Prestige Development and Management Limited.
Facilities Manager Mr. Geoff Kaka says the Solomon Islands National Provident Fund Hibiscus Apartment is committed to offer first world service as a beacon of tourism and hospitality services in Solomon Islands.
He says the management and standard of the building matches the international standard in terms of customer services as first world service in a developing country responding to clients’ queries and proactively solving their issues is pertinent.
The accreditation that SINPF Board received from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism through Solomon Islands Tourism quality standards program is a clear testament of Hibiscus Apartment’s offering of quality apartment along with - quality services.
Kaka a Solomon Islander, owns Prestige Development and Management Ltd and he live in Australia for 12 years so attested to that life and get the full extension of understanding so he have that mind set and Hibiscus is the only apartment to the high level quality manage by Kaka.
“With extensive back- ground and expertise in Prestige we got the product right and what we doing now is forming the bases and protecting the revenue base for SINPF now and in the future so the apartment has to provide world service.
Manager Kaka express accurate line of thinking in the first world is in tourism and hospitality services when clients lived in Hotels and apartments they want to find a home away from home, they come in they feel secure, they feel the environment is clean in terms of comfortability.
What we do is we create home away from home we provide the services to make life easy for them; when they turn on the tap the water is there, the same with electricity so that’s the line of thinking in the first world.
We adopt equal customer service in Australia; thus our customer service is up to date. With maintenance we respond within two hours so if there is a machine broken down we don’t repair it, straight away, we take a standby to install it, within half an hour, because it will take time and our tenants don’t want things delayed, they want things done on the spot.
He said in high rise hotel in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane apartments, the average occupancy is 73 percent, but with NPF making consistently more than 90% occupancy with Prestige taking SINPF Board with facility management the board is sitting comfortably knowing that they are in capable hands.
Mr. Kaka has expressed to manage apartments you need to think out of the box, you must think beyond normal approach to asset management and customer management.
If you have a subcontractor who doesn’t know what he is doing he will run it down, rent will go down and tenants will look for elsewhere for their accommodation, therefore we will lose revenue. In Hibiscus tenants do not complain because we are proactive to make sure there is quality services for clients at all times.
The Hibiscus Apartments was opened in July 2013 and for the past 6 years has been consistently achieving more than 90% occupancy making excellent returns and income for the Fund and its members over these years.
The SINPF Board is now re-investing to refresh the assets and equipment offered at the apartments to maintain the quality and competitiveness of its product offering, with advise and support from the contracted Facilities Manager.
