In January 2020, Accor opened Pullman Rotorua, the first five-star hotel in a geothermal tourist city that had never had one. The 130-room property is a conversion, not a new build: a 1987 office and retail tower on Arawa Street, bought by local developers the Chow brothers in 2015 and rebuilt from the inside out over roughly five years.
The essentials
Group Accor (Pullman)
Opening January 2020
Rooms & suites 130 rooms across five categories: Superior King/Twin, Deluxe (King/Twin), Deluxe Executive, Superior Suite and Executive Suite
Segment Luxury / 5-star
Designer NC
Entry rate From NZD 350 Learn more → The place The hotel sits on Arawa Street in central Rotorua, on land with documented significance to Ngāti Whakaue and Te Arawa, steps from Lake Rotorua and the geothermal attractions that draw the city's tourism economy. It gave the North Island's most visited geothermal destination a genuine five-star anchor for the first time, in a town whose accommodation stock had otherwise stopped short of that tier.
The concept The building started life in 1987 as a nine-storey mirror-glass office and retail block before Rotorua developers John and Anthony Chow (Chow Group Management) bought it in 2015 and spent roughly five years converting it into a purpose-built hotel. Project manager RDT Pacific describes a full interior strip-out, lift modernisation and façade retention with acoustic and fire upgrades, completed in 2020 and later awarded a Merit Award at the Property Council of New Zealand's Property Industry Awards. Positioned for high-end domestic and international travellers (couples, families and business delegates) it operates under Accor's upscale Pullman brand as the group's second Pullman-flagged property in New Zealand.
Dining & wellness Dining runs through Barrel & Co Bar and Grill, an open-kitchen brasserie built around New Zealand grill cuts, craft beer and local wine. The hotel adds an executive lounge, gym, day spa treatments and conference space split across four function rooms (up to 120 theatre-style) plus a boardroom, but no pool; guests are pointed instead to the Polynesian Spa, a ten-minute walk away.
Our take The project is a clean case of adaptive reuse solving a market gap: Rotorua had geothermal tourism numbers but no hotel to match, and converting an obsolete office tower was faster and cheaper than building from scratch. The trade-off shows in the bones (a 1987 commercial floorplate and retained mirror-glass façade rather than a purpose-designed luxury envelope) but the room count, conference capacity and brasserie concept read as a credible five-star offer for a market that had none.
Google guest reviews 4.2/5 · 1078 reviews
We had a lovely spacious suite with views over Rotorua township and lake glimpses. We appreciated that in lieu of the club lounge, our status was recognised with the upgrade to a suite along with a gold card entitling us to house drinks, soft drinks and barista coffee. This made a very positive impact on our stay. We were only booked for 2 nights but would have stayed longer if not for other commitments.
Food in the restaurant was good and staff were well trained, always courteous and helpful.
I enjoyed my stay here. The room was nice. The staff were all friendly and helpful. Good blackout curtains. In winter the lakeside rooms get direct sun which was nice. The shower is a bit comical in size. They seem to have addressed earlier feedback about the open bathrooms by adding large glazed sliding doors floor to ceiling in front of the bathroom area which I think was a good solution.
We purchased a special “Geothermal” package which included accommodation, valet parking, a glass of bubbles each, buffet breakfast, 3 course dinner, and a $100 voucher for Wai-Ariki Spa. This was our first time time stay at Pullman Rotorua and we were looking forward to experiencing it for ourselves.
The room was large and had a view of the city, however the toilet & shower are in the same room as the bed! There’s frosted glass surrounding each of these for privacy (although you can still see people through this), and there is a space above the doors which doesn’t go all the way up to the ceiling so you can hear people in the toilet!
At the 3 course dinner we ordered a side of shoestring fries to go with our steaks. However, the fries were lukewarm when they arrived and we sent them back and another bowl of hot, fresh fries arrived 5 minutes later. At $15 a bowl, the fries were overpriced and we should not have received cold fries, especially at a restaurant which is part of a 5 star hotel!
We arrived at the buffet breakfast at 9:50am, and even though the breakfast ends at 11am, most of the hot food was running out and was not being replenished. It was very disappointing that we missed out on several items that were not topped up.
During our checkout the front desk manager told us that we needed to pay for the parking and dinner, despite us telling him it was part of the package! After checking the details on the computer he finally relented and agreed that we didn’t have to pay for these after all as they’d been included in our deal.
When we returned home we had an email advising that we had been charged $30 for minibar items! We never had any food or drink from the minibar and my husband had to ring up to dispute this charge. Which they then said we didn’t have to pay.
It was a disappointing experience and we have come to expect a lot better service as gold members from the Accor brand after staying in other hotels in the group. Do better, Pullman Rotorua!
We stayed for 2 nights for a r and r weekend. Service was great, all staff were helpful and accomodating, room was clean and modern with amazing view of Lake Rotorua. Hotel is walking distance to popular cafes and eat street. Also walking distance to the Lake front and Wai Ariki spa. Perfect spot.
We made a reservation of 4 rooms for our family but for us, it wasn’t a great start. When we arrived at the hotel, we had trouble finding a place to park, not even a slot at the pick-up/drop off area. We wanted to do valet parking, but because it was the Matariki weekend, there was no more slots for 3 of our cars. We found parking further away from the hotel, but too inconvenient for the family as there were many bags, there was no available luggage trolley also during that time.
We were not happy about the cleanliness of some rooms. We noticed from two of our rooms used cotton buds and tissue in the small bin. One of the rooms had the shower floor already wet and stains still in the toilet bowl. The LED mirror light doesn’t work in one of our rooms. We also noticed the paper coasters for the glasses and mugs were old and dirty which is very unsanitary. But other than that, we enjoyed the rooms and the layout of some rooms are interesting and we had no problem with our sleep and comfort in the rooms. We were able to watch the Matariki drone show from our lake view window, which was the highlight of our stay.
There were occasions when we called and asked for in-room amenities and milk and we were so impressed on how fast they answered the phone and how fast they delivered it to our room. However, there were times when amenities that we asked for were not delivered at all and we had to follow up and call again. Just for the milk bottles, I do feel like some bottles should be replaced with new ones as there were rust on the mouth of the bottle from the lids.
We’ve stayed for 4 nights, and every time we asked housekeeping to make up our room, bed sheets and pillow cases are never refreshed even after we have left a written note daily on the bed. I have really bad skin allergies and the old bed sheets and pillow cases made my condition worse. We also noticed our used and dirty glasses were dried but there were smudges on them and were never polished, which seems like an old used towel was used to wipe it dry which is very unsanitary and made it look more dirtier.
The food and beverage staff including the chefs were fantastic. They were very patient and helpful with us despite our family of 13 coming for lunch without making a reservation. Special mention to Lyka and Mandeep for taking care of our family each time we dined. They really made sure we were okay and made sure the kids, who have food allergies, are able to eat as well. The food was surprisingly great and flavours are very unique. My personal favourite order was the Harmony Pork Belly, which I ordered through room service and despite a busy night, chefs still managed to do great with the plating presentation; The best pork belly I ever had.
As a family of 13, most of our kids are allergic to dairy. We asked for almond milk, which was delivered quickly. However, upon consumption of the almond milk, one of our kids felt very sick and vomiting, which we then came to the conclusion that the milk was spoiled. We’re hoping that this gets investigated so that the same situation can be prevented in the future for future guests.
We were okay with our stay and needs were met, but based on our experience over-all, we’d rather look into other accomodation options if we’d come back to Rotorua.
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