Nigeria and the UK have long had many things in common, and this year there’s a new one – shock election results! The pollsters in both countries got it wrong, predicting close results, but in the UK David Cameron’s Conservatives trounced the opposition parties, to retain power, and in Nigeria, MuhammaduBuhari’s APC won in a landslide over the incumbent PDP, the first time the opposition has won in an election here.
So from June we have a new government in Nigeria, unknown except for its dedication to change a country which has failed to exploit its many opportunities. And that includes its undoubted potential in the tourism industry.
The trouble is, I can’t find anything in the APC manifesto which means they have thought of tourism as a way of creating jobs, and raising people out of poverty. Well, there is one mention, in the Transportation section, where the new government pledges to “Encourage maritime cruises and pleasure boats for recreation and tourism” on the inland waterways. Hmm.They say every journey starts with a single step, but this is a very, very small step indeed!
I found a little more in a campaign speech made by AkinwunmiAmbode, the new Governor of Lagos State – “I am going to integrate tourism, hospitality, entertainment and sports together to create more jobs for all our youths”. We await further detail!
Mr President, Mr Governor, and all the new politicians and others who came into power last month– please, take Nigeria’s tourism industry seriously! Mr Ambode is right, it is all about jobs, our demographic dividend is going to be a demographic time bomb if you don’t create jobs. And tourism creates jobs, for the youths, the skilled as well as the unskilled, for women, and in parts of the country where other economic activities are just not viable.
Have a look at how tourism is promoted on the country’s website. Admittedly, it does a tremendous job of profiling the photogenic DG of the Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation, but click on “Investment” and it goes nowhere. The promotion of the country’s tourism is woeful! (As an aside, some years ago the front page of the NTDC website had a large picture of a tiger on it. Tigers?In Africa?!)
It is difficult to determine what the Ministry and the NTDC actually do to benefit tourism in our country, which is effectively a local activity. I believe that whilst the centre has a role to play in creating the policy framework, and creating an enabling environment, it is the States that should take the lead on promoting their tourism attractions, the destinations that they have created, and supporting the private sector. A private sector which really wants to develop Nigeria’s tourism industry, but which receives virtually no assistance from the government, and which is being taxed up to the hilt.
Mr President, overhaul the activities at the centre, make the Ministry and the NTDC relevant, and empower them to work with and support the States in their activities. Many States recognise that tourism is a viable economic activity, that creates the jobs the country needs, but few understand how to go about realising their potential. Every State has something that will attract visitors (including some with waterways for pleasure boats!), who then spend their money on hotels and other tourism services.
The target market for our country’s tourism sector is the domestic traveller. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but we are just not ready to receive international tourists, who will turn around and flee back to their homes as soon as they arrive at MMIA in Lagos (try arriving incognito with “the herd” one day, and see just how awful the experience is). We have hundreds and thousands of Nigerians who travel abroad several times a year for their vacations, because of a lack of tourism products here. Let’s focus on the security issues, the roads (both their physical state and the innumerable dens of thieves masquerading as “checkpoints”), the funding – often quite small amounts – required to improve the tourism product. It’s called import substitution, getting Nigerians to spend at home instead of abroad.
A Tourism Master Plan was prepared for Nigeria in 2005. It is difficult to see that any of the several recommendations therein has been implemented. Although 10 years old, and some of the provisions have been overtaken by political events, the Plan as a whole is fundamentally sound (although I question the emphasis on international tourism, and would want to see a greater emphasis on the domestic market). It needs to be dusted off, refreshed and implemented, with support from the highest level in government. That’s you, Mr President! We once had a Presidential Tourism Council, chaired by the President, which we were hopeful would produce results – it certainly meant that the President was involved.
I know it would be politically naïve of me to expect an immediate turn round, Mr President, but one small step, followed by another, and another…….
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
Real life, huh? Can you believe it? You watch the TV sitcoms, and think “how silly, it could never happen”. Read on.
The safe in my hotel bedroom won’t open. Inside is stuff I need, passport, air ticket, money, spare toothbrush, a used train ticket, yesterday’s socks and a boiled sweet, the things you just don’t want to be without. It’s 11pm, and I’m leaving for the airport in the morning, so we need to sort this tonight. Easy job normally, seen it done, you need a clever little gadget.
Phone call to reception, and within a few minutes there’s a knock on the door, a man with a smart briefcase, out of which, I am happy to see, he takes a clever little gadget for opening electronic safes. Great, this won’t take long.
He plugs it in, and taps away for a few minutes (actually quite a lot of tapping, I thought you just typed in “open sesame”, and Bob’s your uncle, or doesn’t that work anymore? Abracadabra?), but nothing happens. He changes the battery in the front panel of the safe (which comes off if you know how, it’s attached by a wire to the innards), but nothing happens. He taps away again, nothing. Safe still closed. He makes a phone call and tells me “Our IT man is on his way, but he has left the hotel, and will be here in an hour”. Jeez, another hour? Well, it has to be done, make sure you knock hard when he arrives, I may be asleep.
Sometime later, the promised hard knock arrives, I was asleep, in bed, Mr IT enters the room. There are two of them, Mr Briefcase is with him. In my room. Mr IT (I was tempted to call him Mr Bugs, due to a rather unfortunate dental challenge, but that would be unfair, we’ll stick with his official title) tries again with the clever gadget, and nothing happens. He fiddles with the wires, but that doesn’t work. So he decides to go to the next room and get a replacement panel from the safe there.
This, dear reader, is where it all goes pear-shaped.
He and Mr Briefcase exit my room, and put the double lock on so it won’t close. I am still in bed, remember, and wasn’t ready to get out and hold doors for them. I should have. They come back with the replacement panel, fit it to my safe, fiddle around, and my safe is open. Hurrah. I say many thanks, well done, good night. “Sorry for the inconvenience sir, please don’t close your safe again, just to be sure”. OK, I won’t. I close my eyes. It’s midnight.
Mr IT and Mr Briefcase exit my room, but forget the double lock is on, so of course the door doesn’t close. They both re-enter my room, get the double lock off with difficulty, close the door to make sure it is now OK – and cannot open the door again. The sitcom begins.
Mr IT and Mr Briefcase are locked in my room, with yours truly.
Mr IT fiddles and fiddles (sorry to keep repeating that word, but there was a lot of it going on that night) but, no, the door doesn’t open. He tries to get the handle off, but needs a screwdriver (that wasn’t my assessment, it was his, he said it), none in sight (memo to self – in future, pack a clever little gadget to open electronic safes, and a screwdriver). Next thing I know, he goes out onto my balcony, and launches himself off! I’m on the second floor! But all is well, he returns 5 minutes later with a screwdriver. Fiddle, fiddle (sorry), nothing happens. The door lock is now in pieces, but the door remains closed. I’m still in bed, opening my eyes now and again. Couldn’t see much point in joining in, I’ll stay in the audience. After all, it is them that need to get out, I can wait until morning, and in any case there is still the balcony exit route, recently used to great effect by Mr IT.
I open my eyes, and lo and behold, there are now three of them, all huddling at my door, looking as if they are playing hide and seek, with someone else, now audible in the corridor, trying to find them (“come out, come out, wherever you are”). The third is dressed as Mr Maintenance Man, so that’s what we will call him (Mr MM for short). Where did he come from? He must have vaulted up from the ground floor to my second floor balcony, and in whilst I had my eyes closed (the presence of a ladder cannot, of course, be discounted, but “vaulted” sounds so much better than “climbed”)
There are now, as anyone conversant with the art and science of arithmetic will confirm, three people (not including me) in my room – Mr MM, newly arrived, Mr Briefcase, who has, on and off, been with me now for 2 hours, and Mr IT. I remain in the audience, taking photographs of the assembled team.
Fiddle, fiddle (sorry) by Mr MM, and the door opens, the door lock still in pieces. Mr MM2 (Mr MM’s twin, perhaps, they were dressed the same?) enters, and Mr Briefcase departs (it’s possible that there is a house rule that only three staff members are allowed to fiddle around in a guest’s room at any one time).
It is not over.
Mr MM, Mr MM2 and Mr IT are now together, bent over my door lock, trying to get the door to close, and to open again. It is not to be. It is 1am. They suggest I should change rooms. At 1am.
I arise (you haven’t, I trust, forgotten that I am abed), and cry “Enough. It is 1am, gentlemen, the door is now open, you have done well, now go, allow me to sleep, I will leave the door open, but with the chain on. Do not close the door when you leave”.
They left.
So that, dear reader, is why there were three people in my room that night. Perfectly simple, when you stop and think about it.
And my Tips? If your safe won’t open, don’t leave it to the last minute to get them to open it, you never know how many people you will need. And to avoid forgetting to empty the safe when you leave the hotel (it happens!), put one of the shoes you’re planning to wear when you leave in front of the safe door. I’ve never done it, I can never remember, but it sounds like a good plan to me. Anyone got a good tip for how to remember to use this tip??!!
Welcome to the 7th edition of our annual survey of the international hotel chain development intentions and activities in Africa. We are pleased that this survey has received increasing attention from investors, hospitality and real estate professionals, and other parties interested in the Africa growth story, including the hotel chains themselves, and has become acknowledged as an authoritative source on the African hotel industry.
Hotel Chain Development Pipelines in Africa 2015Just arrived Luanda. Hasn’t changed (yeah, well, see below, this was 2008, it’s a bit different in 2010) – total chaos in the arrivals hall . If you can, dress as an American football player when arriving here – you might get less bruised. You’ll get the idea when you see the entrance – as small as a house door, so that’s the first scrummage – actually getting into the building (your shoulder pads might get in the way, but you’ll be thankful for them in a minute).
Inside, head for the crowd of people waving yellow bits of paper, put your head down, and push into it. There’s a guy in the middle, a health official, who seems completely oblivious to the noise and commotion around him or her, who stamps the arrival forms, and gives them out to the hands in front of him. He’s a saint, he’s being pushed from behind by half of China, more hands waving papers at him than he, or anyone else for that matter, could shake a stick at, and he just keeps on stamping those forms. We could all learn a lesson from him – if you could ever get near enough.
You see, here in Angola, that’s how they do it. You need a Yellow Fever Vaccination Certificate to enter the country. In South Africa, the immigration officer checks it alongside your passport. Here, they have a health official – ONE health official, for the entire arrivals hall, picture it, two or more long-haul flights arriving at the same time – show him your certificate (actually, anyone’s will do, see below), you get the arrivals form, which you then give to the immigration officer. Guess it creates employment.
But there’s only ONE of them – when you consider that half of China is entering Angola at the same time, pretty noisy and not that good at queuing, you’ll begin to realise that American football gear is not fancy dress, it’s practical gear. Surely there must be someone else in Angola who would like to try their hand at being a health official?
Tips for tackling this scrum? Use the elbows God gave you (NOW do you understand why they’re sharp?), put your head down, shove your certificate forward, and don’t give an inch. Watch out for the short people trying to get in below you.
You forgot your Yellow Fever certificate? 3 options:
Join the immigration queue and fill in the form whilst queuing – you’ve normally got plenty of time. It’s up to you whether you adopt the English or the African method of queuing. The queue on the right tends to move faster, but if you’re on the left, they might open the “Nationals only” lane to foreigners. However, watch out for half of China moving en-masse to that queue – they’re surprisingly fast!
In my travels around the capital cities of Africa, it strikes me that, whilst many developers are talking about constructing new 5 star hotels, they seem to be missing an opportunity in the market, and that opportunity is the extended-stay hotel. Many of the cities I visit are absolute naturals for this type of hotel, as I shall explain. But first, an explanation of what an extended-stay hotel is.
Let’s imagine you’re a seasoned traveller, who is in the habit of making fairly long visits when you leave home – perhaps a week or so at the time. Don’t you get fed up with having to rely on the hotel’s staff to do everything for you? OK, so increasingly you can make your own tea and coffee in a hotel room, but it would be nice to at least make your own toast for once! To have a proper fridge to store your milk in. And to have more space to relax, or to work, without having to sit on the bed or on an uncomfortable chair.
The extended stay hotel caters to just such demands, offering a fully-equipped kitchen or kitchenette, and large accommodation units, ranging from 40 square metre studios to one and two bedroom apartments, with defined living, sleeping and working areas. The kitchenette includes (at least) a stove top, microwave, full refrigerator and dishwasher, and some brands also include a clothes washer/dryer.
Downstairs, the public facilities tend to be limited, offering breakfast, a chill cabinet for “grab and go” and a mini-market, and a bar. Where there are ample facilities located outside the hotel in close proximity, there may only be a breakfast room. Some operators will rent the studios and apartments only on a long-stay basis, weekly or monthly, others will take
short stay guests when they are able.
Cities like Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Accra have several serviced apartment providers, but in almost all cases they tend to be apartment blocks which offer daily cleaning services, rather than the coherent hotel product that brands such as the likes of Adagio, Hyatt House, Residence Inns and Hawthorn Suites offer. Of these only Hawthorn Suites has a property in sub-Saharan Africa, in Abuja, but I know that Accor (Adagio) and Marriott (Residence Inn), as well as Hyatt, re actively looking for opportunities for their brands. Fraser Suites are to manage a new property, also in Abuja, due to open in 2016.
The markets, especially in the big cities are, as I mentioned, absolutely right for this kind of lodging product – expatriates relocating and waiting for permanent accommodation, aid agencies, bodies such as the UN and World Bank, teams of consultants, business travellers making longer than normal trips due to the distance, families on vacation and so on. When you are doing business with government in Africa, oftentimes you have to wait, and wait, and wait for the right person to see you……
Some investors have been able to see the commercial advantages of extended stay hotels, and it is a product that we recommend to our developer clients when appropriate, particularly in markets which have seen a great deal of hotel development, and/or have a large pipeline of projects. The attractions of the extended stay model are an efficient business unit, with lower operating costs (fewer staff, lower marketing costs etc.), strong demand dynamics, and generally higher occupancies because of the longer average length of stay. That reduces the risk to the investor.
The per-unit cost of an extended stay hotel is lower – there is no need to provide the extensive food and beverage, and other facilities, that full-service hotels offer, reducing the up-front investment required. The focus is on the accommodation units, which is also the focus for the customer. Guests tend to spend more time in their rooms, and therefore need fewer facilities. The lobby and lounge often has a residential feel, so that the guest feels at home. The General Manager is “mine host”, hosting happy hours in the bar, and barbeques on the terrace.
One branded operator here in West Africa is Amara Suites, currently only working in central Lagos, but with plans to expand elsewhere in Nigeria and the region. Amara manages deluxe residential apartments on behalf of their owners. As noted, expect to see the international chains moving into the market with new-build properties, starting with Fraser Suites in Abuja.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
In the hotel development stakes, West Africa is once again the winner! Our 2015 Hotel Chain Development Pipeline Survey shows West Africa with 53% of new rooms in future new hotels in sub-Saharan Africa, more than twice that in East Africa, and five times Southern Africa.
These are deals signed by the international and regional chains for new hotels opening between 2015 and 2020, some on site, under construction, others still doing the paperwork.
Within West Africa, deals for new hotels have been signed in 12 countries – Benin, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Of these, it will be no surprise that Nigeria has by far the largest pipeline in the region, and indeed on the continent as a whole – 51 new branded hotels with 8,600 rooms, both more than half the regional total. No surprise, as Nigeria is, after rebasing last year, the largest economy on the continent, the largest population and, apart from South Africa, has the largest number of urban conurbations where new hotel development can be undertaken.
Three countries have no new deals in the pipeline – Liberia, Guinea Bissau, and The Gambia, of which Liberia has no branded hotel supply at all, and Guinea Bissau and The Gambia only one hotel each (Azalaї and Sheraton respectively).
So shall we see a plethora of shiny new hotels opening in West Africa? Well, we hope so! In 2015, expect to welcome the Marriott and Kempinski in Accra, and the first ever Noom, in Conakry, and the first ever Yaas, in Dakar. Both brands are owned by Mangalis, a new entrant to the African market, with no fewer than 17 hotels planned in West and Central Africa. Best Western have 3 openings scheduled in Nigeria in 2015, all in secondary cities – Asaba, Awka and Makurdi – as the brand continues to grow its presence in Africa. Also in Nigeria, Starwood are opening their second Four Points, this one in IkotEkpene in AkwaIbom State, and Wyndham their first in the country, the Ramada Plaza in Lekki, east of Lagos.
Azalaї expect to open in Nouakchott and Abidjan, and Onomo in Bamako and Lomé. Also in Lomé, Carlson Rezidor have taken on the Hotel du 2 Février, closed for several years, to open this year as a Radisson Blu, and the company’s first Park Inn by Radisson should, finally, open in Abeokuta in Nigeria.
So, a bumper year for West Africa! Terribly exciting, of course, but as usual every silver lining has a cloud. West Africa is still suffering from the Ebola crisis, which is far from over, especially in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Whilst the outbreak itself has been contained very effectively within those three countries, the hotel industry in major cities elsewhere in the region, especially Accra, Lagos and Abuja, has been very badly affected due to a lack of confidence, and a fear of contagion, resulting in much lower demand levels than normal. Add to that the economic malaise in Ghana, and the several factors affecting Nigeria currently (low oil price, political uncertainty et al), and new hotel openings could be, well, ill-timed. Accra had no reported incidences of Ebola, yet hotel occupancies crashed in 2014, and the opening of two major new hotels there this year – Marriott and Kempinski – will mean more rooms chasing the same number, or perhaps fewer, guests.
Ah well, such is life in the hotel industry! We do seem to go from boom to…. well, not exactly bust, because the underlying dynamics of the region are still buoyant, travel is increasing, the economies are (mostly) on the up, and we really do need new hotels to replace those old ones which are just not meeting our needs anymore, and the owners of which can’t, or won’t, upgrade them. The hotel industry globally is, essentially, cyclical, affected by positive and negative external events, and by new hotel openings affecting the dynamics of the supply-demand equation.
I’m not convinced that all the hotels slated for opening in 2015 will actually happen, but they will open at some time (soon?!), benefiting the weary traveller (modern product, trained staff, good security etc.), the local economy (taxes, jobs etc.) and the image, and therefore the attractiveness, of the destination. A welcome example of that will be the opening of the Noom in Conakry. It was supposed to open in 2014, but was delayed due to the Ebola crisis. Expected to open this year, it will be a major part of the declaration that Conakry is “back in business”.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
Trevor Ward, Managing Director of W Hospitality Group, was delighted to have been asked by the publishers to contribute once again to the prestigious Hotel Yearbook 2015. He was asked to write the introduction to the Africa section, and his theme was that, although a record number of deals for new hotels are being signed by the international hotel chains, too few of those deals are not actually moving to realization.
Click here to read Trevor’s recommendations to overcome this logjam.
The full publication is available at www.hotel-yearbook.com
Really, when you look at it, nothing much has changed in hotel design since – well, since the introduction of ensuite bathrooms. The Savoy Hotel in London, which opened in 1889 was, the tale goes, the first to have ensuite bathrooms, and the owner, Mr Richard D’Oyly Carte, faced criticism, along the lines of “why the blazes would anyone want a bathroom in their bedroom?”!
In the mid20th Century, the fitness centre entered the scene, with one pioneer in that field, Holiday Inn, dubbing it the “Gym & Tonic”, thereby daring to introduce a bit of fun to the business of hotels which had previously been rather austere and forbidding places.
Rooms have got larger, and have got smaller. 20 years ago Hilton’s standard room size was 32 square metres (including the now-obligatory bathroom), but their standard is now 38 square metres – “by customer demand”. At the other end of the scale, don’t pack that cat when you stay in hotels such as easyHotel in London, or Ibis hotels – there’ll be no swinging tonight, in hotels where the developer’s objective is to fit in as many rooms as possible to the available space. For conversions, such as an easyHotel I once stayed in, that even means no windows in some rooms – and you can pay an extra US$8 or so to reserve a room which does have a window! Well, I’m all for customer choice, but hey! (I paid the extra, and had a tremendous view of next door’s wall – but a window’s a window).
Customer choice, or need, is of course what should always drive design. The brands will tell you that upscale and luxury hotel rooms are getting bigger because that’s what the customer wants. And that in other hotels, they are getting smaller, because customers in those rooms are really only buying sleep and clean water. Exploiting that trend, of the budget traveller who just will not pay for anything else, are the hostel brands such as Generator and Meininger in Europe, and Zostel in India, which are taking the customer back several hundred years to shared bedrooms (but not, as was the norm in the early coaching inn, sharing the actual bed with strangers!).
That fun element I mentioned has become something that is not just a feature, but in some hotels defines the whole concept of the experience. I recently stayed in one of Starwood’s Aloft hotels, where the public areas seemed to be one big party place, with live music in the evenings, piped music everywhere except in the bedroom (peace at last!), and were attracting a young crowd, in-house guests and from outside, as a result. So the facilities in that brand, and several others, are not just there for the in-house guests, but are aimed also at the local community, to get them to spend their leisure time and money in the hotel’s public areas. Hotels such as Aloftdon’t typically (there are exceptions) have restaurants anymore, you go to the pantry, the grab-and-go, then munch and mingle.
In my introduction I said “when you look at it”. The real changes that have taken place in hotel design since Mr Carte’s late 19th Century “revolution” have been behind the scenes, in areas and amenities that the guest never looks at, but certainly feels the impact.
Go into many hotels these days and what’s going on in the lobby (and probably in the bedrooms as well)? People are sitting around, working or playing on their laptops and smart phones, using something that none of us could hardly conceive of 20 years ago – Wi-Fi. Ten years ago it was still a novelty, because we still used plugged-in cables in the rooms, and it was a treat to be able to do that in the public areas as well. Now cables are there, but rarely used (although some companies still forbid their staff from using wireless networks, for security reasons), and we demand wireless, not just any old wireless, it has to be high speed. It is a fact that potential guests, both business and leisure travellers, will choose their hotel on the quality of the wireless connection, and need electrical sockets (which take a variety of plug types) everywhere. This is very often overlooked, so we retreat from the public areas (and stop spending money on food and drinks there) to our rooms, where we have to search under the desk or behind the headboard for a socket. Grrr!
So first it was water, we couldn’t do without it being right there, in our bedroom, for our private use only, and now it is fast wireless internet connection. Hyatt have just announced that wireless internet is to be free in all their hotels, recognising that it is no longer a nice-to-have but now an absolute requirement. Others are highly likely to follow suit, the service being now so far up the hierarchy in customers’ needs, and therefore determining where they spend their dollars. Today we have to be connected, and hotels must fulfil that need.
Another “unseen” advance in design is in the MEP – mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Banging water pipes and radiators, and trickles of brown water from the taps, used to be comic clichés in hotels, but no more – we demand clean hot and cold water, with good pressure, when we want it, now. And air-conditioning (climate control) is more and more a standard feature, to put us more in control of our environment, especially in the bedroom.
What’s happening in hotel design is that, instead of the old “one size fits all” approach, hotels are being designed to meet not just the changing needs of the customer base as a whole – today’s travellers are very different, in so many ways, from those of 50 or 100 years ago – but also aiming their design at specific segments of consumers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials, Baby Boomers, Grey Panthers, the lot. So there are those design elements that are common to all. Everyone has an iPad, tablet and/or smart phone these days, don’t they? And everyone wants the other basics to be efficient. Other elements, such as the live music, the absence of a restaurant, the open-plan lobby/bar/lounge/pantry, appeal more to some than others – some guests, like me, still prefer “normal”, walking into a restaurant, that kind of thing. But all, including me, must have excellent Wi-Fi!
Hotel developers and investors who ignore the new basics, and who fail to recognise that different segments want different things, do so at their peril. They are so vulnerable to competition from others who get it right first time. The brands, with their research and development departments, and their sheer scale, have led the way in adapting to those needs, but there is absolutely no reason why an independent hotel cannot do so as well. Let’s face it, we don’t do rocket science in the hotel industry, what we do do is common sense, and that means listening to what our customers want, right from the outset, before any cement is poured.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
trevor.ward@w-hospi
The hotel industry in Lagos is experiencing some quite extraordinary “growing pains” right now.
A bit of history– when I was first travelling from my London base to Nigeria in the early 1990s, getting a room in a decent hotel (and there weren’t many of them!) was a real struggle, with occupancies in the high 80s year round. Then came the Abacha years, which followed the annulment of the 1993 election – Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth, BA stopped flying, and occupancies were down to about 50 per cent. From the return to civilian rule in 1999, Nigeria was “back in the fold”, there was massive investment in all sectors of the economy, including hospitality, and occupancies climbed to above 90 per cent in 2007/08. New branded hotels started to open, but occupancies were still perfectly respectable, around the mid-70s.
Then came 2014, our annushorribilis, and a combination of security concerns and the Ebola crisis hit the hotel industry in Lagos, and across the West Africa region, for six. People were just not travelling, neither from outside Nigeria nor within. There was a complete lack of confidence, and in the extreme companies forbade travel to Africa. Full stop. Interesting, that in a year when Nigeria was declared the largest economy in Africa, and with the economy of Lagos State growing at at least 10 per cent annually, the hotel industry was back in the dark days of the mid-1990s, so far as business levels were concerned.
There were encouraging signs of a recovery in the last couple of months of 2014, and hoteliers report that January 2015 was above expectations –low expectations, granted, but above them all the same!
What of the prospects for 2015? There has been a loss of confidence in West Africa generally, because of the Ebola crisis, but also because of Boko Haram’s continued assaults. Previously confined to northeast Nigeria and to Abuja, they are now spreading their evil to Cameroon and Niger. The US government is warning against travel to many parts of Nigeria, and there are also fears of post-election violence in coming weeks.
Then there’s the severe drop in the oil price, with Big Oil reducing expenditure, which knocks on to the hotel industry in Lagos, and in other cities on the west coast.
Confidence takes a long time to build, and an instant to crash – and by and large it is completely outside the hotel industry’s control. In Lagos, and it affected Accra last year too, we have yet another problem, with the labour unions flexing their muscles against hotel owners, resulting in the closure of the Radisson Blu, the temporary closure of the Federal Palace (now reopened), and unrest at other hotels.
Who’d want to be a hotelier?!
Well, many people would! The industry has an inevitable cyclicality, its fortunes go up and down, with the ups always more than the downs. The number of rooms in branded and other major hotels in Lagos has increased from about 1,000 in 2003 (the year I moved here) to 4,300 today, yet occupancies were still perfectly respectable until last year. Supply growth is nothing like what it was in the last decade, with just 62 branded hotel rooms due to open in 2015, in Mantis’ The George in Ikoyi.Our roller-coaster ride is nothing to do with over-supply! Openings later in this decade couldinclude Fairmont, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Le Meridien and others, but it does take an awfully long time to get a hotel up and running in this town!
If Nigeria can hold a credible and peaceful election, can continue on a growth phase, if the oil price rises again, if Boko Haram can be repelled, if……..well, if West Africa, and Africans, can do what they always do, and prove how resilient they are, our industry will get back on track, and be where it was in 2008 – booming!
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
BT Jan 2015
Travel around Europe and you’ll find that virtually every major and small town airport has a hotel right there on its door step. Travel around Africa and – well, outside of South Africa, there is a dearth of airport hotels.
Many airport hotels in Europe and elsewhere are not just located in close proximity, they are actually linked to the airport with under-cover walkways, or even direct entrances from the terminal. Nairobi and Johannesburg even have hotels embedded within the terminal (although in the case of the former, it is more of a hostel than a hotel, in contrast to Johannesburg’s Protea-branded hotel).
Airport hotels do really well, often outperforming their city centre counterparts, because of the captive markets they enjoy. Airlines love them for their proximity, lodging their crew there (pilots and cabin staff), without the hassle, cost and security of bussing them elsewhere. They also like them for when flights are delayed, so that they can accommodate the passengers very close by, for instant action when the flight is able to leave.
They are also very useful locations to hold conferences and other events involving travel – almost by definition airport hotels are easily accessible by road and of course by air, so for regional and international events, where delegates are “gathering”, they are ideal. For that reason developers of airport hotels typically include extensive MICE facilities, catering not just to the airport and airport-related markets, but also to the local community, for weddings and other events. In some instances, the airport hotels have the largest conference facilities in the city.
This goes back to the mid-1990s, and some time later the airport authorities declared AIC’s lease invalid. At the arbitration (which AIC won), the authorities claimed was that it was just not possible to have a hotel overlooking the runway, being a potential security risk, and that it wasn’t permitted anywhere in the world – I referred the tribunal to a website which identified the best hotels, and in some instances the best rooms in those hotels, for plane-spotting!Here in West Africa, developers have battled to get airport hotels off the ground at the region’s largest airport, Lagos. The first attempt was by AIC, who wanted to build a Hilton adjacent to the terminal.
Subsequently, plans to build a 300-room Holiday Inn at the international terminal, and a 250-room Crowne Plaza at the domestic terminal, also fell foul of the politics, and neither has ever been finished, the latter an embarrassing lump on the landscape, which had already been connected to MM2 by a bridge.
More recently another local developer, Hometel, is seeking to develop a Radisson Blu/Park Inn combo adjacent to the new terminal and car park under construction at international, and we wish them better luck than their predecessors. AeroMarine are also having a go, with a planned Hilton located a short distance from the international terminal (overlooking the runway!).
Elsewhere in West Africa, Cotonou has a Best Western hotel very close to the airport, and a Radisson Blu is under construction at Abidjan airport, where considerable commercial development is also anticipated as part of a new “aero-city”. Accra airport already has several hotels in close proximity, including the Holiday Inn, one of the most successful hotels in the city, and the relatively new Amber Hotel. Planned additions are the Marriott, which has been under construction for – well, ages! – a Radisson Blu at The Exchange, and potentially several other hotels, although like in Lagos there are “issues” with the land. Plans to move the airport will affect the dynamics there, but that’s a long way off. A more imminent move of airport is planned at Dakar, but the Onomo Hotel there will likely continue to thrive because of the commercial and diplomatic community in the area.
There are nascent plans to develop branded hotels at both Douala and Yaoundé airports in Cameroon. Freetown has a hotel at the airport in Lungi, serving not just the demand generated by the airport, but also those persons who need to fortify themselves for the river crossing to the city(!), and also those moving up to the mining areas in the north of the country. Developers were known to be looking at other hotels in the Lungi area before the Ebola outbreak.
Airport hotels are an important part of a city’s infrastructure. Not only do they cater to demand generated directly by the airport itself, but also to demand from the local business and residential community. In addition, airport hotels tend to create demand because they are there – passengers arriving late or departing early, who instead of braving the roads at night, prefer to stay in the hotel at the airport – for vacationers, this can be an “extension” to the holiday trip. Passengers in transit from one flight to another may also choose to spend the layover period in a proximate hotel, rather than uncomfortably on a bench in the terminal.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
