Plot 1415, Adetokunbo Ademola Street, PMB 12724 Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria
Tel.: +234 1 2624600-19 Fax: +234 1 2615205-2618083 E-mail:
reservations@ekohotels.com info@ekohotels.com www.ekohotels.com
Redefining the Concept of Hospitality Lagos is home to hundreds of halls and hotels. But one of them – the Eko Hotel & Suites - has a DNA for exquisite service.
Only the Eko Hotel & Suites (fondly called ‘the Eko Hotel’) provides that requisite peace of mind and professional service that has become its hallmark, providing first class amenities, and shielding its patrons from the hustle and crunch associated with Africa’s busiest capital city. Lagos, Nigeria’s numero uno gateway to the rest of the world, is Africa’s largest and fastest growing commercial, industrial and entertainment hub. Located right in the middle of Victoria Island, the city’s bustling business district, the Eko Hotel has the distinction of being surrounded by lush, beautiful gardens; the Kuramo Waters and beach, and the Atlantic Ocean.
This plush scenario is the canvas for the exciting new world being created at the Eko Hotel. Visitors to the hotel in the last four years would have noticed a frenzy of new developments. “This place is changing so fast I can hardly recognise it anymore,” a Dutch businessman and regular visitor to Lagos told this reporter. Always a safe and well secured environment and now with parking lots for over 1,000 cars, over N60 billion (about $400 million) has reportedly been spent over the last five years to renovate and expand the hotel’s facilities. With new hotels coming on stream almost every month, the dynamics of the hospitality and tourism industry continue to change, reflecting the attraction of the country as a business and leisure destination and the growing competition in the sector. Always on the cutting edge of service delivery, “the hotel is constantly trying to be at the forefront of its industry proposition,” says Danny Kioupouroglou, its newly appointed general manager. “We are constantly trying to improve every area of our business,” notwithstanding the vagaries of the global business and investment climate. Expressing confidence in the long term viability of the Nigerian tourism and hospitality industry, Kioupouroglou makes the point that the hotel wants to be the market leader not only in terms of occupancy but also in terms of hospitality proposition as a whole. “So what we offer is a fully integrated package of hospitality.”
This 34 year old hotel continues to redefine the evolving ethos of African hospitality. “The owners of the Eko Hotel keep reinvesting into the business,” Kioupouroglou told African Business. “They are 100 per cent passionate about Nigeria and continue to invest in the nation’s hospitality industry.” This commitment to business and country has bred a culture of innovation. The Eko Hotel is thus poised to transform the face of West Africa’s hospitality industry with several new additions. “We spent significant amounts of money on these improvements,” Kioupouroglou says. “For instance, we spent about two to three million dollars building our new swimming pool area – so we have a brand new swimming pool, with brand new restaurants, a brand new bar, we are renovating the leisure facilities and trying to be the defining standard of the hospitality industry...” Landmark Developments
The prime asset of this aggressive expansion plan is a brand new hotel – codenamed ‘Eko Luxury’ - that will be at the top end of the five star league, with 180 suites. “This property will be ready for sale sometime in the second quarter of next year,” Kioupouroglou declared. ‘Eko Luxury’ will be the fourth property under the management of the Eko Hotels, which currently operates three other properties, namely, the Eko Hotel & Suites, the main hotel; the Eko Gardens formerly known as Kuramo Lodge and the Eko Suites. “With the addition of ‘Eko Luxury’, we will be growing our room capacity to 840 rooms. That will be the biggest hotel in Nigeria; it will be the biggest hotel in West Africa.” Catering for the peculiar desires of every customer, and having something special to offer the broad spectrum of business and leisure clientele is always a dilemma for big hotels in big cities. It’s a challenge managers of the Eko Hotel cope with very well. Responding to a yawning demand for first grade conference facilities, it opened a brand new $40,000,000, state of the art conference and banquet facility, the new Expo Centre (also known as the Eko Convention Centre), in 2010. Providing nearly 8,000 square metres of space it comfortably accommodates 6,000 guests; and as the biggest convention centre in West Africa, it put Lagos State back in the heart of national, regional and international conferencing. According to the general manager, “the Eko Convention Centre is definitely a unique selling point that nobody else has in Nigeria. It creates demand for the accommodation side of things, and it creates a business niche in itself. Nobody else has this kind of venue. Nobody else has made this kind of investment; you know the investment there was in excess of seven billion naira. Nobody invests in the hospitality industry as heavily as Eko Hotel does.”
Leveraging its knowledge, expertise and experience in property management, the company is also investing in non-hotel real estate assets. “We are developing a building which will be the new headquarters of Total. The building belongs to Eko Hotel but Total is leasing it. So we are really diversifying the business and constantly adding to our portfolio and bottom line. That’s a building investment in excess of N16 billion,” Kioupouroglou says. With all this investments in brick and mortar assets, what about the ‘service issue’, the human capital resource without which any of this would work? We are constantly training our people, the genial Greek assures. “We provide practical hospitality training. Majority of the time, we recruit for attitude and we train for skills, and that’s the way it works.”
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