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Tuesday 22 January 2008

Millbrook Voted Among Best Overseas Golf Resorts


Queenstown’s five-star Millbrook resort has been named among the world’s best golf resorts in a prestigious Australian travel magazine.

The Luxury Travel and Style magazine has placed Millbrook 4th in its list of best overseas golf resorts, behind the likes of Scotland’s legendary St Andrews course, Pebble Beach in California and the Banyan Tree in Phuket, Thailand.

In the fourth year of the annual results, the magazine says its Gold List 2008 – asking its discerning, travel-loving readers to vote on their favourite destinations – is the most comprehensive luxury travel survey ever undertaken by an Australian magazine.

Tens of thousands of magazine subscribers and clients of Virtuoso, the world’s most exclusive travel agents, completed the survey.

“It is especially rewarding to have been recognised by the readers and subscribers of Luxury Travel and Style magazine, people who travel widely and have chosen to list us among the best of the best, ” said Millbrook General Manager Jan Hunt.

In July last year, the Queenstown resort was named for the third year among the top 25 hotels in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, one of only four New Zealand properties to make the list in the prestigious Travel & Leisure annual World’s Best reader’s poll.

In late November, Millbrook was also official hotel for the hugely successful Michael Hill New Zealand Golf Open, an arrangement that will continue for a further two years.

Long regarded as one of New Zealand’s top golf courses, the 18-hole Sir Bob Charles-designed championship course at Millbrook resort has been on the receiving end of an extensive upgrade and modification programme.

‘Strategic bunkering’ is now the name of the game at the five-star resort, where the introduction of twenty-eight new bunkers, the remodeling of another seventeen and the removal of sixteen existing traps (all in the opening 14 holes) have made life just that little more interesting for players.

The bunker upgrades are stage one of a million dollar golf course modification and come off the back of significant recent resort investment including a $10 million villa interiors refurbishment, the refurbishment of the popular Hole In One café, the establishment of a new world class driving range facility, and work starting on a half billion dollar, 200-plus home housing development and additional nine-hole golf course.

Friday 11 January 2008

CC Africa Embarks on a Global Expansion and the Company Changes its Name


Luxury safari company CC Africa (Conservation Corporation Africa) today changed its name, embarked on the second phase of its global expansion programme and launched an exciting new global website. The company’s new name is &BEYOND.

“We believe that our new name more appropriately reflects where and how we operate, and plan to operate,’ said Nicky Fitzgerald, &BEYOND Group Marketing Director

“The decision to change the name of the company was based on the fact that the previous name, CC Africa, was far from ideal. “Africa” no longer accurately reflected the company’s operating regions; research indicated that while “Conservation” was an important value it was not a primary motivator for first time guests, and the word “Corporation” was somewhat of a dampener because no one wanted to go on holiday with a corporation! “

On the expansion front, &BEYOND with joint venture partners Taj Hotels Palaces and Resorts, and Cigen, will open two new lodges in India in December: Banjaar Tola adjacent to Kahna National Park and Pashan Garh near Panna National Park, both in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.This will bring to four the number of lodges they own in India. The group is considering other sites in India as well for further developments

The company’s expansion rollout also includes new luxury lodges in northern Kenya and southern Tanzania, and a move into Central and South America. In addition, &BEYOND is in discussions with the Madagascan Government about the construction and management of luxury lodges in that country’s national parks. In August the company opened two new lodges in Botswana: &BEYOND Xudum and &BEYOND Xaranna in the Okavango Delta.

The new website encompasses both the lodge and travel components of &BEYOND’s business, the URL for the site being www.andbeyond.com

The site went live at one minute after midnight South African time on Thursday October 30, 2008 (GMT+2 hours). Internet users who log on to www.ccafrica.com or www.ccafricasafaris.com will link through to the new site.

Features on www.andbeyond.com include the use of maps to create a context for the user - the location of &BEYOND lodges as well as destination experiences; a photo gallery featuring more than 2 300 images; and videos of each lodge accompanied by narration.

“Delighting guests to make a difference is at the core of what we do and now we will be doing so in more of the world’s most beautiful natural places under the banner of a very apt new name,” concluded Fitzgerald

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