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Hotel Victoria changes hands today
By
Our Reporter - 17-06-2002 |
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The K150 million Hotel Victoria in Blantyre is being handed over by contractors Group Five International to management today, chairman Farouk Gani has said.
The hotel, with 51 fully carpeted bedrooms replete with satellite TV, refrigerators, phones, Internet connection, air conditioning, electronic safes and electronic locks on all doors, among others, has been under construction for the past 12 months.
Gani said the hotel, which takes its name after the street along which it has been constructed will become fully operational towards the end of this month.
“But in the meantime, we want to give the new management, which has been undergoing extensive, training in hotel management a feel of their facility and ensure that everything is in place before guests come in,” he said.
The hotel is to employ a bout 70 members of staff.
Hotel Victoria, with a swimming pool, laundry facility, fully fledged kitchen with latest catering equipment, conference room, board room and a state of the art restaurant “will certainly be the market leader in as far as the hospitality industry is concerned because it combines exquisiteness with affordability,” Gani said.
He said the idea to invest in a hotel was mooted about 24 months ago after most of his international guests encountered difficulties in finding suitable and appropriate accommodation whenever they visited Malawi.
“So as a family, we thought we should invest in a lodge. And with the able assistance of my financial consultant, Shiraz Yusuf, we found the idea was a viable one. That took me to South Africa where I met yet able architects PV&E; Urbanists. After that the road to constructing Hotel Victoria was irreversible”.
The recent years have seen the tourism sector booming with several hotels either being constructed or refurbished. The development does not dampen hopes of Hotel Victoria’s management that they may not attract the expected market.
“We are entrepreneurs, we are businessmen. We like competition and we intend to be market leaders,” financial consultant Shiraz Yusuf of Corporate Management Consultancy said.
Hotel general manager William Van Rooyen said apart from the many facilities in the hotel, a new and innovative accounting concept, Fidelio Fully Integrated Accounting Package is being put into use.
“We will give the other hotels a real run for their money. They all just have to wake up,” said Van Rooyen.
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