Arriving on an international flight at Lagos airport can be a real test of one’s patience. Grin and bear it.
Most flights from Europe, plus SAA, arrive in Lagos in the early evening, and the airport is hot and chaotic. For that reason don’t wear thick clothes and take a good book to read in the queue.
Through immigration, take a car hire with a driver from one of the big names in the arrivals hall. There are dozens of touts offering taxis – ignore the lot of them. You can also exchange money at the bureau de change in the airport. Touts are, again, outside, and to be avoided.
The roads are incredibly congested most of the time and the driving is poor. So, sit back and let the driver fight it out. The airport is in the north of the city, where there are a lot of businesses, industrial concerns, all the airlines and the Lagos State government. If that’s where you need to be, it is a 20-minute drive from the international terminal – or possibly an hour in heavy traffic.
Hotels in Ikeja include the Sheraton, currently undergoing a complete face lift, with great new rooms, the Protea Hotel Select Ikeja, two Ibis hotels, and a couple of Best Westerns.
Downtown Lagos, which is Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lagos Island and Lekki, is where most of the business activity is located, and consequently the main hotels, restaurants, bars and other leisure spaces. To get there, your driver will take you across the Third Mainland Bridge, which is one of only two routes from the airport to the south of the city. Although it is the better of the two, it is incredibly congested during peak hours. Even at 05h30 the bridge is clogged going south, and in the afternoon the traffic starts building up going north from 16h00.
Down in the south of the city, there are many hotels from which to choose, from the gigantic Eko Hotel in VI to the small boutique-style Wheatbaker and George hotels in Ikoyi. It’s best to choose a hotel within easy reach of where you are doing business, because of traffic. Global and regional brands such as Radisson Blu, InterContinental, Best Western, Southern Sun and Four Points by Sheraton all have a presence in VI and Ikoyi, and you should expect to pay anything from $300 upwards per night, with breakfast extra.
There are also several very good small, independent hotels, such as La Cour and Bogobiri, which offer value for money, but not the extensive facilities of the ‘big boys’.
All the big hotels have a variety of dining experiences – both the InterContinental and the Eko have Chinese restaurants – and buffets serving Nigerian and ‘foreign’ dishes are popular. Make sure you try the buffet at the Southern Sun Ikoyi. Eating out is expensive, but the portions tend to be large. Try Talindos for great steak, Ocean Blue for fish, Chinaville for Chinese, Lagoon for Lebanese, and Churrasco for Brazilian. For more casual eating and drinking, try Shades (a new sports bar with big screen) and Crust&Cream (restaurant and patisserie).
To get around the city, take an air-conditioned hired car from your hotel. There are yellow taxis cruising the streets, but their cars are awful. Whether in a hired car or a taxi, you have to know how to get where you are going, as most of the drivers don’t know street or place names. The concierge desks in the hotels are there to help.
On the way out of Lagos in the evening, leave five hours before your flight’s scheduled departure time, to be safe.
At the airport, queues to check-in for the USA and European flights can be lengthy, but if you only have hand baggage you can normally ‘prioritise yourself’, if you know what I mean. There are lots of business class lounges airside, most of which take Priority Pass. I like the SDS one on the ground floor and the ASL one upstairs. If you can’t get into any of them, the Heineken lounge is nice and has free wi-fi, along with (paid-for) coffee and beer.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
Eye on West Africa
I have to say that getting new hotels open in Africa is so frustrating. I looked back at an article I wrote for Business Traveller Africa last year, welcoming the forthcoming opening of such hotels as the Noom in Conakry, Marriott in Accra, Four Points in Ikot (Nigeria), the Ramada Plaza in Lagos, the Kempinski in Accra and others. And with the exception ofthe Kempinski, none of these promised hotels have materialised.
Now, given the current malaise in many countries and cities in the region, that might not be such a bad thing.With hindsight,with occupancies are at an all-time low right now, opening new hotels could add to the pain. But that’s not the point. These multi-million dollar projects have got investors’ and lenders’ money tied up, and are still not earning any revenue. So why is it that building hotels in Africa, particularly in West Africa, seems always to take longer than expected? I’m not talking about short delays of a few weeks or months; these are delays measured in years.
At the W Hospitality Group we arejust compiling the data forthe annual Hotel Chain Hotel Development Pipelines survey, and of the 365 deals – signed by the hotel chains for the branding (and in most cases management) of new hotels yet to open – 84 of them, almost 25% of the total, were signed in 2012 or before. One deal, which shall remain nameless, was signed in 2006! In normal circumstances, a hotel takes three or four years to build, so they should have been open by now, shouldn’t they?
Why are circumstances so ‘abnormal’ in West Africa? There are a number of reasons, and I’m sorry to say that one of the main ones is a lack of expertise. The region lacks skilled design teams, engineers, project managers, and sitesupervisors (although, as ever, there are exceptions). A hotel is a really complicated building, and when a hotel chain gets involved, the structurehas to be designed and built to their specifications. A lack of knowledge usually comes across as a refusal to accept new things, so employing a team without the requisite know-howoften results in an expensive and time-wasting need to tear down the work and start from scratch to get it right. A good project manager can overcome that, but then too few hotel projects have had good project managers to lead the team to a successful outcome.
Finances also play a significant role in the delay of construction and completion. I have been witness to many projects that are left hanging because the owner does not have all the funds in the bank, or at least firmly committed,at the outset. He begins work on site anyway, hopeful that the money will be found. Often it isn’t, at least not when it is needed, so work has to stop, the contractor moves off site, and it takes time for them to remobilise. Look at the Le Meridien project in Lagos, on which no work has taken place on site for over five years, since the contractor stopped work. Despite strenuous efforts by the owner, he has not been able to secure the funding to recommence work. The building was supposed to have two towers, one hotel, the other luxury apartments, atop a podium with restaurants and retail. The shell of a single tower, open to the elements, stands there looking lonely.
Another problem is the owner who just won’t stop designing the hotel.To ensure successful completion, it’s really important to ‘freeze’ the design, and then build it. Some owners, however, insist on making changes. Contractors don’t stand in the way, happy to agree to these changes because they can charge extra for knocking bits down and doing them again. Aside from the cost the change in design carries, the time takes to make these changes moves the project further and further away from a timely completion.
Add to that, delays at the port with containers stuck for ages, political and bureaucratic interference, cost overruns, to name just a few, and you begin to understand why projects are almost always delayed. The sad part of this whole saga is that these delays are very often within the control of the team working on the project, including the owner, and can often be avoided.
Then there’s the example of the Radisson Blu, also in Lagos, where the owner decided not to proceed with the operator he had previously engaged, “changed horses” after starting construction. Radisson insisted on design changes in order to meet their brand standards, and that resulted in not just a delay for redesign and reworking on site, but additional cost.
Not all delays in opening can be avoided, of course – in Conakry, both the Sheraton and the Noom hotels have been delayed because of the Ebola outbreak in 2014. At that time, the Noom was almost ready to open, but the owners were unable to get the technicians in to test and commission equipment, they were not prepared to take the risk of travelling to the country. And various hotels have experienced delays in securing that list licence or permit from the government, and cannot legally start operations without it.
But the delays caused by poor planning and management of the project can be avoided. Do the maths – a 200-room hotel charging $200 a night, which is delayed opening, is losing revenue of upwards of $25,000 a day. Now, tell me, by how much did you cut the professional fees, by using that cheaper firm?
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
It is so exciting! Hard Rock has chosen Lagos as its second city in sub-Saharan Africa to open one of its iconic Hard Rock Cafes. Okay, so Johannesburg beat us to it, but that restaurant is a long way away, and this one is right here, in Victoria Island, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I went to the opening party of the Café recently, and the place was buzzing, just like any other Hard Rock Café anywhere in the world. I don’t mean to sound surprised, but to see an investor taking the plunge into this market at a time when the economy isn’t as strong as it has been is a welcome surprise.
In 1971, two Americans living in London, who wanted to enjoy a good hamburger, opened the first Hard Rock Café, and American-style diner, in an old Rolls Royce dealership in Piccadilly. The chain began its worldwide expansion in 1982, with locations in Canada, America, France and Germany. It has since opened franchises in Central and Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, the Far East, and the Caribbean.
There are a couple of small tweaks from the original operation, to take the local environment into account; the menu does offer upa few Nigerian dishes, and the music is more hip-hop than New Orleans blues, but all-in-all it is the real deal.
Lagos is a massive city, 20 million people some estimate, but the restaurant scene isn’t thatexciting. Even if just 1% of the total population is your target market, that’s a lot of people who like to eat out. But as hipafrica.com puts it “Lagos’ least strong point is its restaurant scene – it would seem that all the best cooking in town is taking place at home!”. That’s a bit extreme, hipafrica.com, and don’t let my (Nigerian) wife hear you say that!Lagos has come a long way since I first arrived here25 years ago, when the only international restaurants outside of hotels were Chinese or Lebanese. Today, most cuisines can be found in town, many more Chinese restaurants, which the local market really likes, as well as Indian, Japanese, Mexican, steak, fish and the rest. Fast food joints, or in the industry’s jargon quick service restaurants abound, with international brands such as KFC, Johnny Rockets, Barcelos, Steers, Spur, Dominos and others competing with local and well-established brands such as Mr Biggs, Sweet Sensation, Chicken Republic and Kilimanjaro.
And there are several home delivery services, such as HelloFood.com and NaijaEats.com, which enable people to avoid the traffic. They get pretty good reviews online, and the delivery charges are typically minimal ($1 or $2 on average).
Hard Rock Café is the first global chain to enter the Lagos full-service restaurant market, but we’ve had Rhapsody’s, a South African chain, for some time (they also have a restaurant in Accra). Many independent restaurants come and go, sometimes because the rent shoots up on renewal, and sometimes because they’re not supported by customers. I have noticed that their menus can be pretty similar, and the prices charged are over the top for what you receive, for both the food and the experience.
At the other end of the spectrum, Lagos is famous for its street food, found on every corner, with impromptu fires and barbecue set-ups serving big helpings of hot and spicy food for a dollar or two. Suya is one of the staples, strips of beef or chunks of chicken, with a special spice from the North, plus rocket-fuel strength “pepe” on the side. Then there’s fried yam, plantain and cow hide (recipe – boil for hours and hours, and serve with “pepe”!), all heavily spiced and filling. Now, a chef from Senegal has opened a restaurant, Nok by Alara, presenting street food as fine dining, appealing to the growing middle class who are seeking something better-presented, and are prepared to pay for it.
It’s not easy operating in Nigeria. Much of the food of the quality you need to operate a high-end restaurant cannot be imported, and many items are not made or grown locally. Most are available, at a price, but it is a moot point as to which side of the law you are on if you buy and sell banned imports.Trained staff are hard to find, and tend to be transient, just passing through the industry, constantly on the lookout for a cushy nine-to-five.Taxes are high, and there are numerous licences required to operate an establishment within the law. There is even a Merriment Tax levied by local governments on anyone holding a party in Lagos State, of about $50 for each gathering. This is truly a case of “If it moves, tax it. If it doesn’t move, tax it. Otherwise, you’re exempt”
But Hard Rock Café have cracked itwith a product quite different from anywhere else, as have all the other international brands mentioned above.Let’s hope for more, we’re ready and waiting for you!
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
I attended a hotel investment conference last week in Abu Dhabi. Focused primarily on the Gulf and Indian Ocean, I did manage to steer some of the conversations around to Africa, seeing as we have a very, very long coastline on the Indian Ocean!
The delegates were primarily investors from the Middle East, as well as from some of the island nations such as the Maldives, Mauritius and the Seychelles. There were also operators, again from the Middle East, as well as some of the global players such as Starwood, Wyndham and Trump. Rotana, based in Abu Dhabi, showed the most interest in Africa – data released by them recently shows that whilst they have only two hotels in operation in Africa currently (Sharm el Sheikh and Khartoum), they have a pipeline of deals signed for them to manage new hotels in no fewer than 10 locations with over 2,400 rooms between them. That’s a far bigger pipeline than many of the international chains.
Here in West Africa, they will be opening in Nouakchott and Lagos, with other cities such as Kinshasa and Luanda on the list. Interesting that they have succeeded to sign a deal in Luanda, where virtually every other chain has tried, and not succeeded, to get a foot on the ground.
Rotana are not investors, but they can mobilise funds for hotel construction from the Middle East, and it is noticeable that investors from there are showing more interest in Africa. East Africa has received most interest, due to proximity and historical ties – did you know that Zanzibar was once part of Oman?! The Saudi-owned Aujan Group, through Rani Resorts, has several investments in Mozambique, UAE-based Albwardy Investments is in Tanzania (3 hotels), Ethiopia, South Africa and the Indian Ocean, and Kingdom Hotels, Dubai-based and Saudi-owned, has invested throughout the continent, in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Morocco and others.
In West Africa, they developed and own the Mövenpick Hotel in Accra, which they have recently put on the market, seeking to exit that investment. Why? According to David Harper of Hotel Partners Africa, an expert in hotel transactions in Africa, “Kingdom are a very experienced investor in hotels, and have identified that the time is right to realise their gains from this asset, a time when interest from buyers will be high. The agents (JLL) have indeed confirmed that they are receiving interest from around the world”.
Eagle Hills, a UAE-based private real estate investment and development company, with close links to Emaar, is investing in Centenary City in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. Centenary City, which is located between the city centre and the airport, is described by Eagle Hills as a “premier lifestyle free zone development”, and is to include of a 200-room The Address Hotel Abuja, a luxury property. The brand is owned by Emaar, and this will be their first location in Africa.
Apart from Kingdom and Eagle Hills, however, Middle East interest in investing in hotels in West Africa has been muted, certainly compared to their interest in East Africa. I put that down to perceptions of risk, as well as, perhaps, language. East Africa has a much more mature tourism industry, with Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique three of the leaders on the continent. West Africa is more “fragmented” with a large number of French-speaking countries, which perhaps can be a deterrent to investors from other parts of the world? Interesting that Kingdom’s one and only foray into the region was to Ghana, long seen as one of the “Africa-lite” countries, easier to do business in than Nigeria, and with impressive economic growth even before the discovery of oil. Many countries in West Africa, small and not-so-small, are just too – well, small(!) for major investments, particularly from another continent.
I believe that there can be more interest from Middle East investors in the future, most likely in mixed-use developments, and most likely in Lagos and Abuja. Eagle Hills are paving the way in that regard in Abuja, and there are several planned mega-projects, such as the Abuja City Centre, and the Heart of the City project, which can be planned to as to be attractive to foreign investors, with sufficient scale to enable mitigation of their risk.
At present, however, attracting foreign investment from anywhere is extremely difficult. There is risk and there is risk. With their experience of investing throughout their own region, as well as globally, Middle East investors are extremely savvy, and whilst the level of risk is most often dependent on which angle it is perceived from, the risks in (mainly) Nigeria are presently very high, particularly relating to the uncertainty regarding the exchange rate. Will they, won’t they devalue? Until that is known for certain, investors will not take the plunge.
But devaluation or not, the opportunities are ever-present, throughout West Africa, and I believe that we will definitely see more Eagle Hills-type projects, sooner or later.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
It’s no secret that hotels in West Africa are seen as being expensive, particularly if you are “travelling with Rand”. I have written before about why the prices are high – here in Nigeria we have to provide our own power plants, bore holes and treatment plants for water, sewage tanks, and even some times our own approach roads. Top that off with the fact that we import virtually everything required to construct a hotel, and our prices work out sometimes double or more what they are in South Africa.
Throughout West Africa, the “parallel” currency is either the dollar or the Euro, and that tends to be the benchmark against which room rates are measured. When African currencies like the Naira, the Kwacha and the Rand are falling off a cliff, hotel rooms seem to get more and more expensive.
You will no doubt have noticed that in most markets it is the top quality hotels that get built first, with developers and brand owners both wanting to make a statement, and to take advantage of the lack of any alternatives in a market with tired old, badly managed properties, in some cases rejects which were previously branded. Travellers on a budget were forced to stay in those hotels, many of which really should have been demolished by now!
Over the last few years, as the hospitality space in these cities gets more developed, I have seen a noticeable increase in development in the branded budget space, as developers accept the argument that not everything has to be 5 star, and that there is money to be made from the budget/economy chain scale.
Accor, who have been operating in West Africa for many years, have been one of the pioneers in this space, with their Ibis brand. Originally a single brand, with hotels in Dakar, Abidjan, Lomé and Douala, it is now a “super brand”, with different categories, from the economy level “blue”, through the original “red” to the upper budget level Ibis Styles (green). According to their website “Whether you’re here with loved ones or on business, your hotel should be a place where you feel good. In the Ibis family, it is this feeling of well-being that is felt in every detail, right as soon as you come through the door of one of our hotels.”
There are two Ibis red hotels in Ikeja, and a newly opened Ibis Styles hotel in Accra’s Airport City.Looking at the OTAs shows prices at least US$100 per night below the branded competition.
Of course, pay less, get less – the rooms in an Ibis (red) hotel are in the order of 17 square metres, including the ensuite bathroom, which is half or less what you will get in one of the major US-branded hotels. Small, but always clean, with TV, internet, hot water – the basics. Don’t pack your cat, you won’t be able to swing it! Forget multiple restaurants and bars, and be prepared for the barman to ask you to wait for your drink whilst he checks in another guest – multi-skilling of the staff is one of the secrets of success.
Of those big hotel chains, Accor is the only one majoring in the budget sector in Africa – Holiday inn Express are in South Africa, but have resisted spreading the brand elsewhere. Equally Hilton’s Hampton is not yet dipping its toe in the African waters. But there are two African chains, Mangalis and Onomo, making their presence felt. Mangalis, with its origins in Senegal, is developing its Yaas brand, with the first hotel due to open in Dakar this year. On their website Yaas claim to be “smart and economy hospitality……brilliantly designed to be inspiring, intuitive, playful, colourful, easy and democratic”. I look forward to finding out what a “democratic” hotel is! From what I read, the rooms are around 14 square metres, but the TVs are BIG!
Then there’s Onomo, founded by former Accor executives, with hotels in operation in Abidjan, Bamako, Dakar, Libreville and Lomé, and opening soon in Conakry. Onomo Hotels are “Fusing economicaland ecological hotels…..offering the best of modern technology….giving priority to locally-flavoured dishes…..a platform for African art and creativity”. They certainly get the award for funkiest website! And interesting that a budget hotel concept gives a headline for its food and beverage offer – certainly the meals I have had at the Onomo in Libreville were excellent (if more French than local!).As with Ibis, the rooms are small, the facilities limited but the prices are around US$100 or more below those of other branded hotels in the same locale. For a traveller on a budget, that’s a significant saving, whatever currency you are travelling with.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
Lagos, Nigeria. Two words that evoke polarized emotions! Some people who have lived here for decades think it is great. Others, mostly short-term expatriates and business visitors, can’t wait to leave. After 13 years here, travelling in and out of the country sometimes three of four times a month, I can understand both points of view, but must stress that it is just not as bad as many make out! Security concerns are, I reckon, overblown – which doesn’t mean you throw caution to the winds and walk through Mushin at night with your new Rolex on display! Be aware, as they say.
Arriving on an international flight at Lagos airport can be a real test of one’s sense of humour/patience/sanity, but not necessarily in that order. Whatever they do to “improve” the place seems to backfire, and as one queues for ages for immigration, one has more than enough time to figure out how they could do it differently to make it easier for passengers. Just don’t ask “why didn’t they…..?”, it’s not worth it. And don’t point out the problems to any of the immigration facilities, nothing you can say will improve matters, and you might find you have committed some felony by opening your mouth.
Grin and bear it. Most flights from Europe, plus SAA, arrive in Lagos in the early evening, and the airport is hot and chaotic – for that reason don’t wear thick clothes (you don’t need them in Lagos anyway, at any time), and take a good book to read in the queue.
Through immigration, take a car hire (with driver, don’t even think of driving yourself, you’ll soon find out why) from one of the big names in the arrivals hall. There are dozens of touts offering taxis, ignore the lot of them, their cars are rubbish. And you never do know whether they are safe (be aware….). Keep your car doors locked at all time. You can also exchange money at the Bureau de Change in the airport – touts are, again, outside, and to be avoided, for fear of fake notes, not to mention the police.
On the road in your taxi, you’ll see why driving itself is not recommended! The roads are incredibly congested for most of the time. And it is to be doubted whether the driving test (Ed. You think they took a driving test?!) included anything about lane discipline, or consideration for other road users. So, sit back, with that good book you brought, and let the driver fight it out. The airport is in the north of the city, where there are a lot of businesses, industrial concerns, all the airlines and the Lagos State government – if that’s where you need to be, it is a 20 minute drive from the international terminal – or make that an hour in heavy traffic!
Hotels in Ikeja include the Sheraton, currently undergoing a complete face lift, 3 Protea hotels and a couple of Best Westerns, plus a brace of Ibis hotels. Under construction are a Renaissance, possibly opening in 2016, and a Marriott, slated for 2018.
Downtown Lagos, which is Victoria Island (VI), Ikoyi, Lagos Island and Lekki, is where most of the business activity is located, and consequently the main hotels, restaurants, bars and other leisure spaces. To get there, your driver will take you across the Third Mainland Bridge, an awesome piece of engineering, from which you will see the lagoon that characterizes Lagos – wherever you look, you see water. It was once a very beautiful city, of which you sometimes see glimpses.
The trouble with Third Mainland is that it is one of only two routes from the airport to the south of the city, and although it is the best of the two, it is quite incredibly congested during peak hours. Even at 5.30am the Bridge is clogged going south, and in the afternoon the traffic starts building up from 4pm (got another book with you?!). Outside of those periods, it is terrific.
Down in the south of the city, there are many hotels from which to choose, from the gigantic Eko Hotel in Victoria Island to the small boutique-style Wheatbaker and George hotels in Ikoyi. Best to choose a hotel within easy reach of where you are doing business, because of traffic. Global and regional brands such as Radisson Blu, InterContinental, Best Western, Southern Sun and Four Points all have a presence in VI and Ikoyi, and expect to pay anything from US$300 upwards per night, breakfast extra. Yes, Lagos is an expensive city. There are also several very good small, independent hotels, such as La Cour and Bogobiri, which offer value for money, but not the extensive facilities available in the big boys.
All the big hotels have a variety of dining experiences – both the InterContinental and the Eko have Chinese restaurants, and buffets serving Nigerian and “foreign” dishes are popular – try the one at the Southern Sun. Eating out is expensive, but the portions tend to be large, something to remember when ordering in a Chinese restaurant! Try Talindos for great steak, Ocean Blue for fish, ChinaVille for Chinese, and Lagoon for Lebanese and for a Brazilian Churrasco. For more casual eating and drinking, try Shades (a new Sports Bar, with a big screen) and Crust and Cream. The latter is a patisserie, with a great ambience and good food, but the service is slow. But then, with the traffic and all that, you can never do anything in Lagos in a hurry!
To get around the city, take an air-conditioned car hire from your hotel – there are yellow taxis cruising the streets, but whilst cheap, their cars are pretty dreadful, without air-conditioning, so I advise against it. Whether in a car hire or a taxi, you have to know how to get where you are going, as most of the drivers don’t know street or place names. The concierge desks in the hotels are there to help, and Google maps has good coverage of the city.
If you have time for souvenir shopping, try Lekki market, about 30 minutes from VI, and whilst on the way there, drop into Nike’s Art gallery, which is just off the Lekki-Epe Expressway.
On the way out of Lagos, leave 5 hours before your flight’s scheduled departure time. Yes, that’s right, 5 hours. You just cannot be sure of the traffic! A journey which would take you 30 minutes with no traffic, could take 3 hours at peak periods.
At the airport, it is all fairly normal, well, as normal as it was coming in. queues to check in for the USA and European flights can be lengthy, but if you only have hand baggage you can normally “prioritise yourself”, if you know what I mean. There are lots of business class lounges airside, most of which take Priority Pass, I like the SDS one on the ground floor, and the ASL one upstairs. If you can’t get into any of them, the Heineken lounge (the big green one!) is nice, and has free Wi-Fi (and coffee, and beer, of course, but you have to pay for that).
So, when are we seeing you back here??!!
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
At long last, Sierra Leone has been officially declared as Ebola-free, with no new cases for 42 days. Indeed a cause for celebration, and the famous Cotton Tree in the centre of Freetown was the scene of all-night rejoicing at the beginning of November.
The hit to the economy has been severe. In 2014, real GDP growth was, according to the IMF, 7.1 per cent, way above the sub-Saharan average of 5 per cent, and in the top 5 in the region. In 2015, the IMF’s projection is for a decrease in GDP of almost 24 per cent, which is in the bottom five globally. Ouch. That’s not going to create jobs, far from it, as one cause of the decline is the cessation of iron ore mining in April.
I visited Sierra Leone at the beginning of October, my first visit in six years. Since then, the Radisson Blu hotel has opened, and the Hilton is under construction. The beaches have remained as fantastic as ever, and the people are as warm and welcoming as they have ever been.
So my message is, Sierra Leone is Ebola-free, it is history, so is the civil war, let’s please return to business as normal.
But the government is in no position to do much to spread that message, they have no funds to attend trade fairs, to advertise the country’s attractions – but there are a couple of websites, one from the private sector – www.visitsierraleone.org – and the other the national tourist board – www.welcometosierraleone.sl. On the former, you can apply for an entry visa on-line!
Why am I promoting Sierra Leone like this? Because we in the African travel industry need to give them all the help we can. Heaven knows, the government has its work cut out with the recovery programme, preventative measures, rebuilding the healthcare sector, the economy as a whole, at a time when its foreign exchange earnings are close to zero. The tourism board has always been underfunded, and I can’t seeing the sector getting too high a priority for a while.
And because, once upon a time, Sierra Leone had a thriving tourism industry, based on its beautiful natural attributes – the beaches I mentioned earlier, the mountains and rain forests, the birds and wildlife, the culture and heritage………There is no real reason why the country couldn’t get back to where it was in the 1980s. Then, an estimated 100,000 tourists visited annually, mostly Europeans (French and British), and mostly for those beaches. In 1987, the Bounty Bar’s Taste of Paradise TV advert was filmed on River Number 2 beach, just to the south of Freetown. I bet that, if you can remember it, you thought it was filmed in the Caribbean?!
Well, actually, there are a few reasons why tourism will struggle, not just the lack of funding for promotion. The government also has no funds for training schools, and the service in hotels and restaurants, at least those I visited, comes more often with a snarl than with a smile. Many of the hotels are run down due to a lack of funds for maintenance.
Getting to the country is expensive, because of the lack of airlift – a bit of a chicken and egg situation, as usual, with carriers needing more passengers to make flights profitable. The cheapest economy class ticket from London to Freetown in November is just over US$1,000, via Paris – there are currently no direct flights.
I travelled from Lagos on Air Cote d’Ivoire through Abidjan, but we stopped in Accra and Monrovia, so that was four flights! Nigeria, with its vast population, high propensity for travel, and no need for a visa, should be a good market to target (Nigerians also love to party, and Freetown is famous for its nightlife!), but not when it takes so long to get there.
Airlines currently operating, in addition to Air Cote d’Ivoire, are Kenya Airways, Air France, Brussels and Royal Air Maroc.
Getting around the country can also be difficult right now, with many roads in bad repair, particularly in the rainy season. But there is hope at hand there, with a new highway nearing completion between Freetown and the Peninsula, to the south, linking such wonderfully-named places as River Number 2, Big Water, Black Johnson and Waterloo to the capital in less than 30 minutes, places which are currently 1½ hours or more.
Another challenge is that the international airport at Lungi is 20 to 30 minutes’ boat ride across the mouth of the Sierra Leone River from Freetown. The airport isn’t bad, having been renovated not that long ago, but the road from the airport to the boat station is unmade, and boats aren’t everyone’s cup of tea (certainly not mine!). Having said that, 100,000 tourists a year didn’t seem to mind that back in the 1980s…..And the government reports that a Chinese construction company has started work on the new Mamamah International Airport, 38 miles south of Freetown, which means I will no longer have to suffer that ruddy boat! The development of the new airport will open up the Peninsula for new tourism facilities, and the new highway will mean greater day visitation to the resorts and restaurants there from the inhabitants of Freetown.
There you have it, warts and all. I like Sierra Leone. All will agree that the country has been dealt a really bad hand in the last 25 years. But, ironically and somewhat sadly, the Ebola outbreak has turned the world’s attention back on the country, and the provision of donor funding for the recovery programme is already kick-starting development again.
Katrina Manson, author of the Bradt Guide to Sierra Leone, says: Few people know about Sierra Leone’s sweeping many-coloured beaches, its swim-perfect seas and glorious rainforest-mountain backdrops. They don’t know you can dine on fresh-grilled lobster and refresh yourself with a cool beer beside the ocean. They don’t know about the country’s threatened primates and rare exotic birdlife, or that it is home to the region’s highest mountain. They are unaware that its capital is one of the safest cities in Africa and that people dance with a mesmerising lust for life until after dawn. Or that, despite the decade of war, the nation’s tenacity, affection and spirit is what really defines it.
Well, you know it now!
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
The international anhotel chains signed a record 79 deals for new hotels in 2014, and there are likely to be more hotels built in Africa in the next five years than in any previous period. There are several markets which are in need of new hotels, either because of a shortage in the face of demand growth or, quite often, due to the dire condition of the existing supply.
There’s no universal, reliable estimate for the number of hotels in Africa, nor is there any information on how many are under construction. According to our pipeline research, of the c50,000 hotel rooms in the chains’ pipelines at the beginning of this year, 63 per cent, or around 31,300 rooms, are actually under construction, in 36 countries. That’s fewer than 900 per country. But this doesn’t capture the non-branded hotels, of which there are many.
These new hotels are not evenly spread. In some markets, such as Luanda, the number of non-chain hotel rooms under construction exceeds the branded ones by a considerable margin. A close examination of individual markets shows that, whilst the country average in the chains’ pipelines is below 900 rooms, in some cities the addition to the supply of unbranded hotels, some of a considerable size (e.g. the 280-room Emerald hotel in Lagos) does appear to indicate that there might be oversupply on the horizon.
Demand for hotel accommodation generally grows organically, in single digits – 5 to 9 per cent annual growth would be considered very healthy, higher than the annual growth of c4.5 per cent in international tourist arrivals. On a one-off basis, the opening of a new convention centre, like the one planned for Calabar, can result in higher growth, this time supply-led. But hotels open all at once, not gradually to match demand growth, and a new hotel is slowly absorbed into the market. But on opening, a hotel with 300 rooms can increase the supply in a market with, say, 2,000 existing rooms by 15 per cent, way above “normal” demand growth.
The threat of oversupply is, however, very often merely on paper, and with the exception of South Africa, where the 2010 FIFA World Cup generated over-enthusiasm in terms of hotel building, has never materialised.
If all the hotel projects in the pipeline for Lagos, plus those currently being studied, were to go ahead, there will be oversupply. But an analysis of the c4,300 rooms in the Lagos pipeline reveals that whilst 52 per cent, c2,200 rooms, are “under construction”; of those over 1,000 rooms have at one time had work undertaken on site, but are now stalled, the site closed. That leaves just 28 per cent of the pipeline actively being built. Of the total, we consider that only 26 per cent will be built and open to the public, 45 per cent might happen, and the rest are unlikely to see the light of day.
It is a peculiar feature of the African hotel market (much worse in some than in others) that signing a management agreement doesn’t mean that the project will ever be realised, nor does starting construction of a hotel mean it will be completed.
Looking at the hotel chains’ pipelines, no fewer than 60 deals with 13,500 rooms, over 25 per cent of the total, were signed between 2006 and 2011, and really should have opened by now, but for many reasons (most often a lack of finance) they are still just paperwork or, in some cases, unfinished monuments. And again, many independent hotels are also standing unfinished – Abuja, for example, has many half-built hotels, mostly of 100 rooms or fewer, which never got past the concrete-pouring stage, and which have been abandoned, in some cases for several years. In Lagos, RDDL’s Le Meridien has remained as a shell for 5 years, with no work underway on site, and there appear to be problems with the Marriott on Victoria Island, where the site is also shut down.
But oversupply, if it ever happens, is a temporary phenomenon. Organic growth in demand tends to sort it out, especially as new investors are deterred from the market. Further, more supply can actually create demand, due to the increased spend on marketing the destination by the hotels themselves, and as the addition of new rooms can mean that larger events, such as conventions, can be accommodated.
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
There’s been a lot in the news recently about the new visa regime implemented by South Africa, and the negative impact on visitor numbers, acknowledged by both the Tourism Minister and the Ministry of Home Affairs. “The government needs to ensure a balance between national security and growth in tourism” said the Tourism Minister according to one on-line report.
“National Security” is used frequently to defend what, in my opinion, is mostly an indefensible system. I’m not talking specifically about the South African situation, enough has been written about that already. I’m referring to the visa system in Africa generally, which absolutely, 100% has a damaging impact on tourism flows.
Yes, there are national security issues and yes, every country has the right to monitor and refuse entry to anyone, but that’s not what the visa system achieves, and often not what it is about.
Here in West Africa, the holder of a passport from an ECOWAS country can travel visa-free within the Community, and also to Chad and Cameroon. However desirable or undesirable they might be. Even simpler than having a passport, a national of one of those countries can apply for and easily obtain, an ECOWAS laissez-passer, an “internal passport”, just with a simple proof of nationality.
So a Nigerian national can travel without any hassle to Cameroon, but not to neighbouring Gabon. Visas for Gabon are only issued in Abuja and, like the new South African system, you have to apply in person. Why is that, now?
Senegal has just abolished visas for foreign visitors, in an effort to revive its tourism sector after the impact of the 2014 Ebola outbreak from which it suffered, not due to any direct effect from the virus, but because of proximity.
As a foreign national with residency in Nigeria, I have to apply for a visa for several countries in the ECOWAS region, some of which can be obtained by my PA in a matter of hours, others take several days and require me to travel to Abuja to present myself in person. Why is that, now?
Nigeria and South Africa seem frequently to have arguments about this and that, and typically that translates into a problem for one country’s nationals to get a visa to go to the other – never admitted, but politically-motivated. The reason sometimes given in these situations is that “we have run out of visa stickers”! I was told that there are piles of South African passports in the Nigeria High Commission in Pretoria, “waiting” for a Nigerian visa. Talk to hoteliers in Lagos, and they will tell you that they often get cancellations from South African guests at the last minute, because the visa hasn’t been issued in the timeframe promised, or at all.
It’s crazy. It is not about national security. Checks are rarely made about the individual making the visa application, to determine their desirability or risk of letting them visit.
So what is it about?
Bloody-mindedness, bureaucracy, money and politics.And ignorance. Ignorance of the fact that international travel creates jobs, brings foreign exchange and investment, increases trade, and fosters good relations.
Money is often the main reason for requiring a visa, with the visa fees one of the main sources of revenue for the diplomatic posts issuing them – I remember the case of an African post in the UK actually giving false information about visas, stating that they could not be obtained on arrival, they had to be applied for and paid for in London – they needed the money!
I travel around Africa a lot (38 countries so far!), and in many countries, particularly in East and Southern Africa, I get a “visa” on arrival, by paying as requested. I have no objection to that system, but what I do object to is that they call it a “visa” – it is not, it is an entry tax!
What’s so special about Senegal, that they can abolish visas altogether? The answer is that they “get it”, that increasing visitor numbers is good for the economy, good for the people of the country, and good for the politicians.
The solution? Well, here’s one. Turkey, a country with as many security issues as any African nation, has increased its tourism from around 2.5 million visitors in 1985 to over 30 million today. For some nationalities, they charge an entry tax, payable at the counter on arrival. They say they will abolish that system soon, and for nearly all nationalities, you apply and pay on-line for an e-visa. If you have a Schengen, UK or USA visa, it is automatically granted, on the basis that since those guys have already done the checks required, why should Turkey have any concerns? It takes about 5 minutes to get through the application process, and download the visa. Instant gratification, same as buying the air ticket, hotel and other components of the travel experience. Works for me and my Nigerian family, every time!
Kenya has implemented an e-visa system, but you have to wait at least 2 days for a result – no sir, that’s too long, you’re not “getting it”!
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
You might think that travelling between Africa’s two largest oil producers, Nigeria and Angola, would be a piece of cake. Not so.
Having obtained my visa to enter Angola, a Herculean task, I booked on the Arik flight. Lagos to Luanda c3½ hours direct, the alternative being through Addis, Johannesburg or Dubai which, as anyone familiar with an atlas will know, aren’t terribly sensible routes, requiring a layover, and taking many, many hours longer.
I’m not Arik’s greatest fan, because over the years they have “stolen” countless hours of my life, due to delayed flights. When a 6-hour delay on a 60-minute flight becomes the norm, you do begin to wonder why you bother. But when there’s a direct flight of 3½ hours or a journey of 30 hours, you put your prejudices aside, and say “OK, whatever”, and book it.
I check-in online on the afternoon of the flight, get a boarding pass, travel to the airport, and learn that the flight had been cancelled the day before. “What the heck?! Thanks a bunch!!”. Sotwo days later it’s SAA through Johannesburg, a 14 hour journey, and we have to stop in Accra to take on fuel, as there’s none available in Lagos.
So to Luanda, where the differences between the two leading oil-producers are quite marked. In Luanda, where they really can be quite paranoid about foreign visitors, passport control is a breeze, with only one person seeing the need to inspect our passport – in Lagos it is four officials, minimum.
But travel around Angola is much less easy than in Nigeria. I went to Cabinda, an exclave, i.e. a piece of Angolan sovereign territory which is not attached to the majority of the country. Five people checked my passport on the mainland, and another two when I arrived in Cabinda, for what was technically a domestic flight. And I needed an official letter from my client’s company to make the trip!
Mercer rate Luanda as the most expensive city in the world for an expatriate to live, mostly due to the exorbitant rents for apartments and villas. Not just living there, look at hotel expenses – I stayed at one of the leading hotels and paid US$400, with an average restaurant check of US$150 for two, and that’s only for the food! Lagos has got much more expensive in the last few years, but it ain’t that high! A corporate rate at a leading hotel in Lagos won’t be more than US$250 to US$280 – but at least in Luanda breakfast is included.
The streets in the centre of Luanda are as chaotic as in Lagos, mostly due to the lack of off-street parking, so the roads get clogged. But you sense that the drivers are more patient than in Lagos. And down in Luanda Sul, the city’s new and rapidly growing expansion area, there’s much less congestions, with new buildings providing the necessary parking.
There are not yet many hotels in Luanda Sul, the exception being the Hotel Talatona, next to the convention centre. Some are planned, and I hear that Accor may soon enter the market there. But in the CBD, there is a huge amount of activity. The 400-room hotel in Miramar, known as the Intercontinental (but not the global brand) looks ready to open, and there’s the BikukuAlvalade hotel, not far from the airport, which also looks near completion, and the 370-room VIP Grand, in the ComandanteGika project, is now out of the ground. The owners of the Continental hotel are building a new 180-room hotel in Maianga, also close to the airport, the ChikChik Hotel is under construction at the airport, and Radisson Blu have a project, not yet started, on the Ilha.
That’s a lot of new rooms! I reckon the supply could more than double in the next 5 years, with most of the new hotels actually under construction, and some ready to open this year, so looking pretty likely. And that’s into a market which has been badly affected by the drop in the oil price, with a direct correlation between the oil price and room occupancies. The result has been a major reduction in government and oil company spending, which means fewer travellers needing accommodation, and a real scarcity of dollars in the system.
Back here in Lagos, we have also been impacted by the reduced oil price, but the situation is less extreme than in Luanda. Occupancies are down, but as I wrote last month, the election result has brought new confidence, and there are signs of increasing travel. And, most importantly, there is little or no new supply coming into the market in the foreseeable future, unlike Luanda which looks like it could be swamped with new rooms. The George, a 62-room boutique hotel, opened this month, and the next to open looks like the 150-room Marriott, sometime in 2017 or 2018.
Unlike most markets, where increased supply means lower prices, the hotel industry doesn’t always “play by the rules”. Lagos hotel prices haven’t gone down, in the face of a 300% increase in supply in the last 10 years. But travellers to Luanda may well benefit from the increasing supply of rooms – whilst I was there, two of the leading hotels actually reduced their published room rates, without any change on the product or itspositioning, something I have never seen before. So watch this space, Luanda may not always be “the most expensive city in the world”!
Trevor Ward
W Hospitality Group, Lagos
