Golden Tulip To Operate Two More Hotels

Golden Tulip Hotels based in The Netherlands is teaming up with W. Hotels and the Lionstone Group of Nigeria to form Golden Tulip Western Africa which intends operating 10 to 20 hotels in the sub-region within the next three to five years.

Two of the envisaged Golden Tulip hotels are immediately planned to be located in Ghana, Mr Han W.R. Kennedie, President and CEO of Golden Tulip Hotels, stated at a press conference in Accra last weekend.

He named City Hotel, Kumasi, as a facility to be developed and operated by Golden Tulip. Negotiations on the second Ghanaian facility, he stated, were not advanced enough for an announcement.

Mr Kennedie stated that a Golden Tulip inspection team would be in Kumasi at the end of this month to assess reconstruction and upgrading work on the City Hotel and draw up a schedule for work to begin.

He praised Golden Tulip Accra for its efficient and successful operations over the past 14 years. The hotel, he said, had established a niche in Ghana, in the West Africa sub-region and across the world for its excellent care, high standards of hospitality and quality of service.

He also praised Golden Tulip Accra for training numerous hospitality sector professionals who would be of great service to the successful operations of Golden Tulip Western Africa.

The entity, he announced, would be launched by the end of August 2005 and would build or acquire hotels in the other West African States in Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

Mr Kennedie estimated that investment in 10 of the envisaged Golden Tulip Hotels in West Africa would come to $80 million.

Mr Trevor Ward, Managing Director of W. Hotels, partners in Golden Tulip Western Africa, said he had relocated from London years back to provide hospitality services in West Africa and found the sub-region a “continuing safe region to invest in”.

He named the growing demands of the sub-region's resources (gold, oil, bauxite, etc.), the stabilising political atmosphere and recent moves toward debt cancellation as factors that should accelerate economic growth and greater integration of the people in the sub-region.

The Strategic Development Director of Golden Tulip Hotels, Rachna Taneja, was of the view that greater competition in the hospitality sector in the wake of new and greater numbers of facilities would, in the long run, lead to lower hotel rates.