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Speaker 1: Moving in the hotel sector too. A couple of local

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Speaker 1: players Capstone and Marsden do you know the names. They've

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Speaker 1: merged to create the country's largest independent hotel platform. So

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Speaker 1: we're talking forty five properties, two and a half thousand rooms.

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Speaker 1: Serga Bassam is the CEO of the merged group and

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Speaker 1: is with us morning morning. This been in the pipeline

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Speaker 1: a while.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, of course, this is a strategic more for us,

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Speaker 2: which was a planned move. The timing basically reflects through

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Speaker 2: the market is heading for us, and we had two

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Speaker 2: big local businesses performing well independently and we saw this

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Speaker 2: opportunity to create something more powerful together, so we took.

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Speaker 2: We took the opportunity and this is scare benefits everyone

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Speaker 2: and the industry. Hence we got the bigger, more powerful

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Speaker 2: local company Operator Good.

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Speaker 1: So this is just about scale or is there a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of alignment involved within the hotels, within the company.

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Speaker 1: We need to sort of, you know, get your ducks

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Speaker 1: in a row.

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Speaker 2: No, it's not just about the scale. It's it's it's

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Speaker 2: one of the main reasons. But we've got international brands

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Speaker 2: expanding into New Zealand and to be able to compete

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Speaker 2: with it was one of the main things we need

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Speaker 2: was the scale. Uh and that's what was lacking for

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Speaker 2: us because we were both operating independently and powerfully. But

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Speaker 2: this gives us the ability to compete with these international brands.

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Speaker 1: You fullish, you bullish on tourism at the moment, Do

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Speaker 1: you feel that things are going pretty well, that the

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Speaker 1: recovery is on a bit? We we do.

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Speaker 2: We are positive. We are definitely positive. Tourism is coming back.

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Speaker 2: The demand is there. The focus now is making it sustainable.

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Speaker 2: You know we derive infrastructure, staffing and a you know,

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Speaker 2: better margin across the country.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I wish you the base well appreciated. Sergia Basum,

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Speaker 1: who's the boss of Kepstone of Marsden. I looked them up.

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Speaker 1: So ho in Auckland if you know that won the

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Speaker 1: nautalus Arua north of Auckland. When I was going to

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Speaker 1: tell you in the Tasman they've got the Aurarua Lodge,

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Speaker 1: They've got the Theatre Royal on the west coast, they've

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Speaker 1: got the Woodhouse Mountain Lodge in the Mighty Matter car.

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Speaker 1: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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