The Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC) will open its Kutubu Heritage Hotel in November 2026.

This new facility will give travellers a base from which to explore Mount Bosavi in Kutubu, Southern Highlands Province, which the MRDC Managing Director Augustine Mano has called "Papua New Guinea's Jurassic Park".

The crater of this extinct volcano, about four kilometres across and one kilometre deep, shelters a rainforest so isolated that a 2009 expedition by the BBC, the Smithsonian Institution and Papua New Guinean researchers found the Bosavi woolly rat, the world's largest rat, along with other species new to science.

The hotel will also provide access to two of the province's leading natural attractions, Lake Kutubu, Papua New Guinea's second-largest lake and home to fish species found nowhere else, and the Beaver Falls, also known as Wasi Falls, one of the country's most spectacular waterfalls. Together with Mount Bosavi, these sites position Kutubu as a significant nature and cultural tourism destination for the Southern Highlands Province.

Since August, PNG Air has flown into Moro every Monday and Thursday from Port Moresby and Mount Hagen, the first regular passenger service there in six years. 

The route is served by the Mangi Kutubu, an ATR 42-600 owned by MRDC subsidiary Petroleum Resources Kutubu and leased to PNG Air, the first aircraft PNG landowners have bought and leased to a major national airline.

The aircraft, the MRDC Group's stake in PNG Air and the Kutubu Heritage Hotel form a chain designed to keep the benefits of tourism with landowners and local communities. It is MRDC's way forward for building lasting wealth beyond mining and petroleum.

Mr. Mano said conservation must sit at the heart of this growth. "Once a species becomes extinct, it cannot be brought back," he said. 

"We are investing ahead of established tourism demand, and that carries commercial risk. But we believe the long-term economic value justifies taking that risk."