Denarau Island’s Sofitel Fiji Resort & Spa, is celebrating the start of a new year with an elegant new luxury room category, including ten new suites.

Unveiling the rooms this month, general manager Adam Laker said the new luxury category was created in response to strong demand for an elegant yet attainable room product by both leisure and incentive business travellers.

The new luxury rooms reflect not only the evolution of the resort, but the more general evolution and sophistication of visitors to Fiji.

“Australian and New Zealand guests are becoming increasingly discerning,” said Laker, “With that comes an expectation for increased luxury, an expectation that Sofitel is now able to satisfy better than ever before.”

“Increasingly travellers are upgrading themselves and their room type of their own accord,” he said. “In 2012, people lead busy lives and realise that time is a precious commodity. The trend is to make every holiday moment count and small indulgences like booking the next room type up are on the rise.”

He added that figures over the past twelve months indicate that travellers are ready to splash out and indulge more than ever before, opting for a still affordable yet slightly more sophisticated room and resort.

“Sofitel was surprised to record an 18% increase in bookings for our prestige suites in 2011. Armed with that information, we felt that there was an opportunity to leverage that luxury aspiration and introduce a new room category that would rest between our superior room and prestige selections.

The luxury room integration, which commenced in October 2011, represents the final phase of the resort’s update which also included the soft renovation of certain public areas.