Rankin Inlet (Nov 10/04) - The new Turaarvik Inns North Co-op hotel officially opened its doors in Rankin Inlet this past week.

The hotel features 22 guest rooms, a conference room and a spacious dining room open to hotel guests and the general public.

Of the 22 rooms, 10 are suites with in-room cooking facilities.

Manager Mark Dawe said a special evening was held on Oct. 29 for a number of residents to try a meal free of charge in the hotel's dining room, which is open daily from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m.

He said it was a huge relief to finally have the doors open and be able to welcome their new customers inside.

"We've been working on this for quite a while and so far, the response from the community has been great," said Dawe.

"We've been kept quite busy here."

Dawe said marketing research shows there's ample opportunity for two hotels to co-exist in Rankin.

He said to date, the new Co-op hotel is employing 15 people as cooks, servers, kitchen and housekeeping staff.

Dawe, who hails from Nova Scotia, said the Rankin approach to hotel management is a flagship project for Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. (ACL)

"We have a full-time chef and a full-time kitchen manager, while most of the other operations have combination managers.

"So, this is kind of a new direction for us and we're trying to set the standard for other Co-op hotels in our establishment."

Dawe said if the two-manager approach works well in Rankin, it will soon be used in other Co-op hotels.

The only other Co-op hotel using a similar set-up is in Cambridge Bay.

Dawe said ACL hotels support officer Don Griffiths came to Rankin to help launch the new hotel and lend staff his support.

"I hope to see everyone come down and check out their community's new hotel and dining room," said Dawe.

"The rooms are well furnished with a number of amenities, the quality of our food is quite good and we're concentrating hard on service.

"We want to set high standards in all three of those areas."