Today more than 35 per cent of its business is dedicated to meetings and events, supported by its destination restaurant, Cibaria by Alessandro Pavoni of Ormeggio at the Spit and a’Mare fame.
Manly Pacific’s general manager, Dylan Cole, says the growth in business events is the strongest the hotel has experienced. Much of it can be attributed to Sydney CBD corporates bringing their teams across to Manly for a change of mindset that adds value to their events.
“We’re up at least 30 per cent on pre-COVID levels,” said Cole.
“And where this 213-room hotel has operated at more than 80 per cent occupancy for decades, this past week we’ve been at 98 per cent,” he says as he shows micenet a full ballroom and breakouts for a large pharmaceutical conference, followed later in the week by an even larger three-day event for a regular corporate client.
There are nine meeting spaces at Manly Pacific, from a small room for five or six, to a ballroom for up to 550. There’s also a pillarless ballroom for 300.
Over his five years at the helm of the hotel, Cole saw it totally closed down twice, during which time the owners invested more than $30 million in renovations that turned the midscale hotel into a five-star luxury experience.
Six months ago, the hotel added its Italian piazza-style destination restaurant, which has proved popular with the events market as it caters for 40 to 200 in its new Cibaria Terrazza event space on level two, overlooking the ocean.
Cibaria also offers a private dining room for 12, which features presentation equipment as required, although the food is clearly the star attraction of the space.
During the renovation process Cole says he happened to discover the original architect of the hotel and invited him to see the renovations in progress. The architect was pleased to see that the original design was largely still in place. Cole learned that the decision not to build a high-rise hotel was made to ensure the hotel would not cast a shadow across Manly beach.
It remains an eight-level building with a rooftop pool and an expansive sundeck, along with a group of in-demand ocean terrace rooms that each have their own 100m2 furnished sundeck.
The hotel weas showing off its latest additions to micenet, leisure media and some trade representatives last week, hosting a working lunch in its top accommodation suite – the Infinity Residence sized at 177m2 plus a 100m2 oceanfront terrace.
Our job was to learn about watercolour art and produce a couple of pieces under expert guidance. After two hours micenet’s correspondent discovered he was better at creating images with a camera than a paint brush.
