Once A Hotel Crosses First Few Anniversaries, Maintenance Becomes A Daily Issue – Hotel Presidential GM

Across Africa, election years are usually seen as an approaching Armageddon or an apocalyptic season. Therefore prior to any election on the continent, sometimes rightly so, there is fear of violence and dislocations to regular governance, business, and social activities.

Little wonder that every election period, foreign businesses and multinationals close shop and even advise their employees to return home till after the elections.

It is such election unrest that has fuelled predictions of break-up of Nigeria over the years by the West should certain characters win the elections.  For God so love Nigeria, the 2023 presidential election has come and gone, but the predictions of the local and international seers did not come to pass.

These doomsday predictions about the elections, just like in the COVID-19 era, hospitality businesses in most commercial cities are grossly affected with low patronage.

In this interview with Lucky George, Editor, African Travel Times, Johnny Boulos, General Manager. Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt, one of the oldest and consistently well-run hospitality businesses in Nigeria bares the secret behind the survival of the hotel.

What is the secret of this hotel surviving different administrations and tough times?

One of our major secrets is teamwork which comprises the entire management and staff. However, as a facility that has age, renovation becomes daily instead of monthly or yearly exercise.

In the city of Port Harcourt now, there are about 3000 hotel accommodation rooms because it’s now fashionable that every wealthy person sees hospitality as an investment opportunity.

With the competition and other challenges, security that stands this hotel apart from others. In fact, it’s a bragging right to say we are the most secured hotel in the city in addition to top quality facilities to give our guests the most memorable experience whenever they stay with us.

Therefore, constant renovation is a major priority. We have just upgraded our water heating system and now we are working on our chiller or cooling system for the comfort of guests.

Though, we have a dip in patronage due to a drop in Nigeria’s oil production quota, knowing fully that most of our businesses are oil and gas related.

However, now we hope that after the yuletide break and the election circle are over, our business will return to normal or something very close.

Elections generally affect businesses for fear of violence and chaos, how has this affected you?

Two weeks before the elections, all the oil and gas companies notified us that their staff would be working from home. By that, you know the implication of no room bookings, no events and training activities.

It would interest you to note that most of our major businesses revolve around training. Training activities alone can lock down all our rooms for two weeks running. Apart from rooms, we also generate revenue from food, drinks and even laundry.

The two major airlines that we have here are also leaving or scaling down their operations for the election periods’ which will further drive down our occupancy. However, we will be depending on our very loyal domestic customers who may want to stay away from their towns or business during this period because four years ago, we were fully booked during elections time by those who were worried that the exercise might not be peaceful.

Over the years, I have seen faces that I was told have been here for ages, how have you been able to upgrade and model them to modern day hospitality standards?

We have about 500 staff, and we have constantly invested in them. I have a full department for training alone. Here in the hotel, all the heads of departments and management sit and come up with a training calendar yearly which we have diligently adhered to. It would interest you that the average years of service of staff are between 10, 15 and 20 years now.

What is the state of security affecting your operations?

I have been here since 2006 and I witnessed and experienced the worst period of insecurity. Without a doubt, the security situation has improved greatly. Besides that, the traffic situation; roads infrastructure has also improved. The movement from one end of the city to the other is quite good now due to the several flyover bridges that have been constructed to ease movement.

What is the future for the hotel?

The step we are seriously considering for the future is to go green and also looking forward to adding a third wing where we currently have the tent. We want to build a hall that can accommodate or seat around 3000 persons.

What incentives do you have in place for locals, especially with the presence of big shopping malls now in the city that would no doubt attract people from nearby cities and states for weekends or family visits?

We are developing a package with which we hope would attract business as you have described above. Meanwhile, the incentive would be that families or groups will come with breakfast and dinners.

There is a major health facility that is being built here and without a doubt, it would pull so many people here that would also have needs for hotel facilities. Don’t forget too that Real Madrid Academy is also coming into town and we believe this would help generate traffic to the city that we are well positioned to benefit from.

Finally, what I would like to add is that 70 percent of our main businesses come from oil companies and the government and the remaining 30 percent is what we are spreading for local benefits and other regular guests. With the 70 percent, get close to covering operational cost and profit margins which enables us to make affordable rooms and services to our immediate communities.