Smart managers are usually quick to point out that it’s the employees that are the key to success. Officials at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa showed appreciation for those employees who have been with the resort for the
Smart managers are usually quick to point out that it’s the employees that are the key to success.
Officials at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa showed appreciation for those employees who have been with the resort for the entire 15 years it has been in operation in a unique way last week, running color pictures of all of them in a two-page, paid advertisement in The Garden Island.
The fact that they have so many long-term employees is newsworthy in itself, with so many workers making job changes as often as some other people change clothes.
It was called the Hyatt Regency Kauai Resort and Spa when it opened on Nov. 15, 1990, but the sign changed on July 15 this year to honor the resort’s conversion to the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa.
The name has changed, but the service, elegance, ambiance, aloha spirit and, it seems, most of the employees, remains the same.
The “Hyatt Kauai,” as locals and regular visitors call it, took a little more than six years from concept to finish, and cost more than $220 million dollars to construct.
In further honoring of those long-term employees, along with shorter-term workers, hotel managers treated the 900 employees of the Grand Hyatt Kauai last week to a special breakfast and lunch in the employee cafeteria to celebrate the 15-year anniversary, on the actual anniversary day.
More than 22 percent of the 900 employees have given the resort 15-plus years of service. More than 47 percent have been with the resort between 10 and 15 years. Close to 70 percent have devoted between five and 10 years.
In September, 1992, after Hurricane ‘Iniki, the cost of repairing the resort was close to $60 million dollars. It was one of the first properties to reopen after the storm.
Most of the destruction was confined to water damage from high winds and surf, and the Hyatt was the first hotel on the island to re-open, in March, 1993.
Since 1992, the resort rooms and furnishings have been upgraded and refurbished several times, most recently in 2004 when all rooms and suites were completely refurbished, a hotel spokesperson said.
For more information about the Grand Hyatt Kauai, please call 742-1234.
