In picture: (L-R) John Pulu and Stan Walker. Photo by John Pulu, Tangata Pasifika
The Australian-born New Zealand winner of the Australian Idol, Stan Walker was performing live tonight at the new Tanoa Dateline International hotel.

Photos uploaded to Facebook by the New Zealand’s Tangata Pasifika correspondent John Pulu who was the Masters of Ceremony during the events showed Walker and his band had appeared on stage.

Walker tweeted this afternoon and said: “We here & we performing tonight…”.

He was performing at an evening champagne reception held to celebrate the launch, which was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni and members of the royal family.

His Majesty King Tupou VI officially launched the kingdom’s new largest hotel on Thursday 16.

The 122-room hotel with Bar Cafe represents a multi-million investment and has created about 100 new jobs in the Friendly Islands.

The celebration was also attended by a New Zealand business delegation led by the country’s Ambassador for Pacific Economic Development, Shane Jones.

Jones told guests at the opening ceremony he was glad to see Tonga’s tourist accommodation services had acquired a four star hotel.

He said he knew about the owner, the Reddy Group because they have nine other hotels in the Pacific including two in New Zealand.

Prime Minister Samuela ‘Akilisi Pohiva said the government saw the new venture as a great economic opportunity for Tonga.

“Our role in government is to create appropriate supporting domestic policy environment to facilitate economic growth. As a matter of fact we need a strong and solid foundation on which to build our economy,” he said.

He said the national hotel, which was formerly known as Dateline International hotel “was in a poor condition” when government undertook to search for a foreign hotel investor.

“Project’s aim is on direct corresponds contributing to our economic development as stated in the Tonga Strategic Development Framework, the government continues to seek to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth through the promotional of economic growth and for further strengthening of business in Tonga,” Hon Pohiva said.

Reddy Group Managing Director Mr. Rohit Reddy said: “Our journey began some four years ago when it reaches our interests in this hotel with lots of negotiation we finally concluded a deal with the Government of Tonga in March 2015. This project has been an extremely difficult project for us which requires lots of patient”.

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