Protea to open more Africa hotels

The investment was centred on Nigeria, Zambia and Uganda, marketing director Nicholas Barrenblatt said last week.

In Nigeria, Protea and its local partners are building four Protea hotels and one African Pride hotel, which is the luxury brand in the Protea stable.

"We are adding 400 rooms under the Protea brand in Nigeria and we are building one African Pride that will have 140 rooms. Those are being built mainly in the big nodes such as Ikeja Lagos and Benin City (in the south)," he said.

The money being spent on the Protea brand has been raised by the partners in the developments.

Protea's model was to advise developers on what was required to meet the customer and operational needs of a Protea-branded hotel and then enter management agreements to operate the hotel, he said.

This advisory role was crucial to the success and sustainability of the hotel, Barrenblatt said.

Protea's experience of operating 120 hotels across Africa, which makes it the largest hotel group on the continent, has given it insight into what makes hotels work.

In Nigeria about $90m is being spent on the five hotels, with some of that being spent on refurbishing some of the existing hotels.

Protea operates four hotels in Africa's most populous country. At least another six were being explored for development there, Protea CEO Arthur Gillis said.

Zambia and Nigeria were markets "where we have presence and the brands have grown from strength to strength, not only in the large cities but also in the secondary nodes, as the countries' economies are developing and becoming more sophisticated", Mr Barrenblatt said.

In Zambia much of the development is being driven by the resurgence of the copper industry.

Two new hotels are being developed in Zambia, one 100-room Protea in the capital Lusaka and an 80-room hotel in Ndola, in the heart of the country's Copper Belt.

"The copper-mining sector is really what is driving all the development there and we are starting to see a lot of South African companies opening up there," he said.

In February, Protea would open its second hotel in Uganda, in Entebbe, he said.

Source: Business Day