Transcorp Hotel CEO, Mrs. Dupe Olusola in this interview during the Christmas Tree Lighting at the Transcorp Hotels Abuja spoke about the expansion drive at the hotel, the innovativeness at Transcorp, and how the hotel is providing premium services to its loyal quests, and more. Excerpts:
We are here again for Transcorp Hotels’ annual bespoke event: the Christmas Tree Lighting and Carols. The Christmas Carol was undoubtedly exceptional. But again, for us at Economy Footprint, it is an opportunity to take stock of your year. So, how has the year been for Transcorp Hotels?
It’s been wonderful and really good. We are so grateful for everything that we have achieved this year. We worked together collectively as a team and strongly believe in excellence. We believe very strongly in giving our guests the best services throughout, Christmas is a season to show appreciation to our guests and we always start the appreciation in the first three days in December. We officially launched Christmas in Abuja and Nigeria. We have adults and children coming around to listen to the carols.
We are grateful for a great year and hopeful for an amazing 2025.
A lot of guests came around for the Christmas tree lighting. Did they share their reviews for 2024?
The country has been challenging, but we appreciate that we have life, and good health is something we love to celebrate. We have so many loyal customers. What better way to show appreciation to them than to have them here celebrating and enjoying with us? The feedback has been great.
The Chairman, Mr. Elumelu was also in attendance. What does that mean for the event?
We had our 100th board meeting for Transcorp Plc. As a group, we believe so strongly in corporate governance. We had all our board members attending the meeting to discuss how our performance was in 2024, and discuss what we need to do better going into the new year. We talked about the economy and its impact on the business. So overall, we have had a successful year. Our numbers are great. We had some challenges as well but we are very dogged, disciplined, and tenacious. We also believe strongly in Nigeria. We are proud to be citizens and we will continue to fix things to make sure it works. We invested in power, we invested in energy, and hospitality. These are key areas that if we can fix, our nation will be great.
Talking about numbers, your numbers for 2023 were great, what are your projections for 2024?
We are going to finish very strong. We are happy about the numbers that we have achieved so far. Our occupancy is at over 83 percent for a 677-room hotel, which is exceptionally good. It means that every day of the week, we are busy, and in terms of profitability, we have very strong numbers. In terms of our revenues, we are surpassing all the numbers in the previous years. We are in a good place and positive that next year will be better. There are things we are constantly challenged with, which is the increasing cost of running businesses. We all live in Nigeria. We know the Band A cost that has been given to us. We know the cost of diesel and all of these costs associated with running a business. But even with all of these, we strategize to run our business efficiently. We are putting an eye on our costs and we are being innovative and bringing new strategies. We have already started our Christmas offers. We want families to come here, at Transcorp Hotels. We are giving discounts to families to enjoy the leisure. We all know what the foreign exchange is saying and the devaluation that has happened. We want Nigeria to start to look within the country for holidays. We want Nigerians to say I don’t have to go to Dubai, London, etc and say I can enjoy just as much in Nigeria. We have an arts and crafts village where you can shop for gifts and nice things that are locally made. So we are trying to promote more of Nigeria and Africa. We are quite happy about that.
You promised a product last year that wasn’t launched – the 5,000-seater event center. When would it be launched?
In October, we had 6,000 people from ICAN have their event at the event centre. We are so focused on excellence and perfectionism. We are almost ready to launch but we are testing it with some events to see what we can improve, what we call our snagging list. Some days after the ICAN, we had a big wedding that hosted up to 2,500 people. So, every day we are getting messages from people wanting to use the hall. But the hall will be ready by the first quarter of 2025. What we are doing now are just little things and ensuring we can improve the videos and sound quality. The hall is something that Abuja is going to be so excited about holding events there. There will be more events, more drama, plays, musical concerts happening there, and more. We are truly excited about that.
The Transcorp Ikoyi has gone on for so long, when are you projecting to launch it?
We have made significant progress. We have acquired more land. What we are doing now is that we are looking at a redesign to ensure that we can deliver on the 315 rooms. But there is so much we are looking at. So in addition to the event centre, we are looking at expanding the Transcorp Abuja. As I earlier said, we are doing an 83 percent occupancy rate, which means that we turn back guests sometimes. We are focused on building extension here, so we don’t have to turn back guests who want to enjoy our excellence.
How many additional rooms are you looking at?
We are looking at 100 for a start. Then we can grow from there.
What is your advice to your loyal customers?
They should buy Transcorp shares. We are only going up. They should continue to come and enjoy our hospitality, our food, our recreational spots. Just come and stay with us and enjoy. Come spend Christmas with us. we have special offers and all the way into the next year from Valentine’s to Eid and Summer, we have special offers for you to enjoy fantastic premium treatments.
Talking about forex cost, how are you leveraging local content?
Any business that tries to run now on imports cannot survive. The disposable incomes are no longer there again. Incomes have reduced, whether we like it or not. So, we are focused on local content. Our foods are grown around our environment. We are focused on local content on foods and even amenities. It is something we are conscious about. Constantly we are looking internally to reduce costs.
