Construction of a new six-floor Convention Centre in central Nuku‘alofa will start at the end of this year.

An extension of the Janful International Dateline Hotel, the centre will be built at a cost of $10 million pa...‘anga, said Lucy Niu, the General Manager of the hotel.

It will be located behind the current Splashbar area at the back of the hotel. Lucy said that the centre would house conference facilities on the first floor, plus 100 units on the five other floors. One or two units may be combined into an apartment, which could be bought by prospective buyers. The Centre is scheduled for completion before the 2006 with the aim of hosting the annual South Pacific Forum conference.

Meanwhile, the Janful International Hotel has a new Hotel Manager, Naiting Jin, who took over the post in December from Lucy Niu, who had been holding both of the posts of General Manager and Hotel Manager. Naiting has been with the Hotel Industry during the past 12 years, and he came to Tonga after working for the Marriott, in London.

Lucy said that Naiting's expertise was in Food and Beverages, an area that the Janfull Dateline Hotel wanted to upgrade.