Marshall Islands Resort active ’23’

Marshall Islands Resort General Manager Hirobo Obeketang (left) and Jason Timothy, the Resort’s new Food Safety and Sanitation Specialist. Resort management saw the need to improve and ensure the quality of the food it serves, its biggest source of revenue, so created the new position and hired Timothy. Photo: Hilary Hosia.

HILARY HOSIA

Marshall Islands Resort has a lot to celebrate in its 23rd anniversary this week Friday and Saturday — for starters the state-owned enterprise performs in an outstanding manner for a once heavily-subsidized entity. RMI government audits of the Resort show a well-managed entity.

Perhaps most important is the bottom line in the latest FY2018 RMI audit: MIR is the only one of 10 smaller entities of the RMI government to turn a profit based on charges for services exceeding expenses. The resort showed $121,129 net revenue in 2018, continuing financial improvement evidenced the past two years under General Manager Hirobo Obeketang.

Speaking of outstanding audit record, MIR is slated to take over management of the Pacific Wellness Center on Ebeye after the government recently put the center into a “receivership” situation.

MIR’s revival of the former Anrohosa Hotel and restaurant — renamed Ebeye Hotel — prompted the government to place Ebeye Wellness Center under its management.

While majority of hotels pull in most of its revenue from rooms and accommodations, MIR generated most of its revenue from its food and beverage department, a rarity in the hospitality world. The audit report for FY2018 showed $2,035,136 was made from Food and Beverage followed by $1,703,627 generated from rooms. A similar figure from 2017 showed the following: $2,043,104 from Food and Beverage and $1,746,382 from rooms.

Hirobo credits the entire staff, adding that everyone contributed to the success of MIR.

Hirobo also added that it is MIR’s duty to the government and to the people to pull its own weight and not rely on government subsidy.

Another reason to celebrate is the fact that MIR continues to hire more workers. Hirobo said the hotel would be adding over 10 new hires to its staff. “That’s over ten more families to feed,” Hirobo added.

Read more about this in the August 23, 2019 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.