By: Daniel Adeleye
http://thenationonlineng.net/recession-forced-hospitality-business/

Bamidele Faparusi a 2001 graduate of Electrical Electronics from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) is the CEO of Hotel Express International (HEI) an online hotel booking portal. In this interview with Daniel Adeleye, the former member of House of Representatives speaks on his passion for the hospitality sub-sector vis-a-vis the challenges and prospects. Excerpts:

Tell us about Hotel Express International (HEI)

Hotel Express International is a hotel international discount programme based in Norway with extension in Nigeria. It’s a business of helping various travellers reduces their travel expenses. Hotel Express negotiate global discount with hotels and that discount can be transfer only to their members. So it’s a very good platform for business owners and travellers to save money on their travel cost. One good thing about HEI is it opens to all Nigerians; It’s not only for the VIPs, it accommodates both low and income earners. The benefits are for all Nigerians especially business people and pleasure travellers. Joining HEI is like any other social clubs, there are terms and provisions to become member and the benefits accrue on the platform is enormous.

So what HEI got to offer Nigerians?

HEI just as its vision of reducing travel cost to travellers, HEI is set to make the platform available to individuals and corporate organisations to help them reduce their travel expenses. There are different categories of products with HEI that individuals and corporate organisations can benefit from. HEI online is a very good platform where as you search booking can be built for organisations where they can control their travel itineraries and do their bookings on their own platforms at a well discounted rate that can be negotiated globally. So Nigerians of all classes can actually benefit from HEI. HEI is what every business can actually key into to increase their revenue, increase their brand awareness, have international exposure. The HEI is good and not just for Nigeria, when you have the card from here you can go to anywhere in the world and use it. So that’s very beneficial.

What personal experience inspired you to establish HEI in Nigeria?

Yes of course over the years, I’ve been using an HEI tag sometimes in 2008 when I went to South Africa for a conference. I’ve used it in several countries that I travelled to like Dubai, UK amongst others and it saved me a lot of hotels expenses, almost half of what I should have paid. And after a while I spoke with them in Norway and they bought the idea of extending the business to Nigeria. And that’s what we have been doing and a lot of people had already keyed into it. It’s an opportunity for hoteliers to increase their revenue, not just hotels, it includes all travel service providers like restaurants, spa, car hirer services and airlines, HEI is like a melting point for all of them to come and offer discount to the members of travels providers which cut across the globe and members are increasingly growing.

What’s your customer base?

HEI customer base across the globe is over 15 million and we have over 150,000 hotels on the platform with a lot of corporate organisations in the programme. Although we started in Nigeria two years ago and currently we have about 500 hotels on our platform in Nigeria such as Transcorp, Protea brand, best western, Golden tulips, Reiz Continental, 3-5 Star hotels amongst others.

HEI also create employment opportunity for many Nigerians. We have direct staff and agents. Being agents of HEI, they can work from their homes and offices and presently we have ten full time staff over fifty agents across Nigeria.

What are some of the challenges facing this kind of business in Nigeria?

Yes of course, like every other businesses there are challenges, especially coming with a business concept that is new. One major challenge unlike our counterparts in other countries is that of businesses and customers. Here people still believe that there should be facial contact before they can deal. You know this is purely a service business and people are still sceptical about patronising service business online.

To address this challenge we have people on the ground, we are opening up the business to resellers and agents who are interested in taking a bite from the cake. Presently we have 8 resellers and 50 agents nationwide and there are still sill enough rooms to accommodate more resellers and agents across the country.

Can you shed more light on resellers and agents; what differentiate the two?

Yes resellers are like distributors within a territory who has the capacity to sell all products of the company and also service customers within their agreed territory. More importantly, resellers have to be a business entity. On the other hand, an agent can be an individual interest to sell any of the company products but they are not allowed to provide any services, agents are like freelance salesperson. Being a reseller or agent of HEI is very rewarding.

What’s your appraisal of the hospitality industry in Nigeria; do you think it has lived up to people’s expectation?

Hospitality industry in Nigeria is actually coming up. But I think government needs to do more to improve on the tourism potential of the country. They need to open up Nigeria to the rest of the world. We are not there yet compare to what’s happening in other African countries like Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Namibia. Those countries are doing far better than we do in Nigeria. If Nigerian government could come up with strategy that will bring in tourists to Nigeria, that will actually impact positively on hospitality industry in the country. Local brands are coming up, there are a lot of investments going on in the industry in Nigeria, but that investment can only be sustainable if there is enabling environment for tourism to thrive. And that’s the challenge that hospitality industry are facing in the country.

It’s not the single approach that can actually address that issue, we have to be multi-dimensional. First and foremost, we have the population in Nigeria and how well are we going to galvanise the Nigerian population to develop our local tourism potential? And what do I mean; somebody from Lagos going to Bauchi for tourism, somebody from Bauchi comes to Ekiti on tourism and somebody from Port-Harcourt going to Enugu for tourism. We really don’t have that yet. There should be a strategy that will ensure that all that is happening in Nigeria should be like starting from the basis, and then open up a country. Every state in Nigeria has tourism potential that can be harnessed. It left to the federal government to work with the states government to develop those potentials by partnering the states government. And then collectively, see how they can market it to the rest of the world. By so doing I think a lot of tourists would come visiting Nigeria. Nigeria has all divers of tourism; we have spiritual tourism, adventurous tourism, pleasure tourism and all that, if all these are developed and market very well to the rest of the world, it can actually bring attention to Nigeria.

And again, the issue of insecurity challenge remain a threat and actually hindering the growth of the business in Nigeria. Although that may not really be an issue in Lagos or Abuja, but in the areas like Plateau, Borno states, hospitality business has suffered a lot in those states. Also tourist location, how many world class tourist locations do we have in Nigeria? The Osun Osogbo mangrove is a UNESCO site and most of the UNESCO sites in Nigeria how do we promote them? Even if we focus on UNESCO accredited locations and showcase them to the world, with UNESCO brand behind those locations we should be able to draw people to Nigeria, but since the attention of government is not in that area. I think government needs to redirect their attention to tourism and see what could benefit the citizens from it.

How has recession affected the hospitality sector and what’s the way forward?

Like every other sector of the economy, hospitality is definitely being the first to suffer from recession because when the purchasing power of people reduces and business activity reduces, then people will travel less and when people travel less it will affect the hospitality industry. When the purchasing power of businesses reduces, instead of people staying in hotel, they’ll look for friends to hang out with to trim cost. That’s why HEI came in to fill in that gap, to help people save up to 50 percent on their hotels bills and their other travel packages. It was actually during the recession that I felt that there is a need for Hotel Express International in Nigeria at least to cushion the impact of the recession. And I think we have done fairly well in that regards.

What’s your long-term vision for HEI

Hotel Express International Nigeria is here to stay and stay for a very long time. We are building our network of travel partners daily, be it hotels, airlines, restaurants, health and wellness, salon and spa and all that. We are also investing heavily in training of our personnel’s while we hire more as our membership grows. Recently there is a local airline that I won’t like to mention that will be our local airline partner. We will make the deal open as soon as the details are worked out. We are open to this kind of partnership provided it will return money into the pocket of our members.

You were once a lawmaker. Can you tell us what you did prior to been a lawmaker?

I was the Managing Director/CEO of my Engineering Company, GreenPower Overseas Limited, which I started in 2003. GreenPower is into provision of Solar Energy Power Systems and Electrical Building Services. As a registered engineer I also engage in engineering consultancy services with few global firms.

I was a federal lawmaker in 2011under the political platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and later at the All Progressives Congress (APC), where I represented the Ekiti South Federal Constituency 2.

FacebookTwitterGoogle+PinterestLinkedInWhatsApp

Do you want to add to your stream of income?

Become a reseller or agent of Hotel Express Nigeria and earn up to 20% discount.

To know more kindly visit

www.hotelexpress.ng

That's right! join the big boys club, though not limited to male folks. Save up some cash as the festive season approaches.
Contact us via mail @ info@hotelexpress.ng. visit: www.hotelexpress.ng.

Become a member of Hotel Express International!

As a member you will enjoy an unbelievable 50% discount off rack rate at quality hotels worldwide. Members will also enjoy discount from partner restaurants, Spas, lounges, Golf course as well as Car Rental services. Choose between more than 4000 hotels from 2 star to 5 star luxury hotels to suit your budget and taste.

You will receive a personalized card (Silver, Gold or Platinum), a comprehensive directory listing all participating hotels, star ratings, addresses, phone and fax numbers. Amongst them are hotels from well known chains such as: Sheraton, Golden Tulip, Renaissance, Hilton and more. As a member you also receive a free reservation service at our participating hotels for your abroad travels. Hotel reservations can be made through Hotel Express Nigeria. You can also at anytime check out our hotels on our website www.hotelexpress.ng or www.hot-ex.com and wap site to do your own bookings.

To obtain the discount you simply have to inform the hotel that you are a Hotel Express International member upon booking and presenting your card as you check in. the 50% discount is subject to availability.

Join Today and Start Saving Money

* Stay in Quality Hotels and slash your hotel bills by half
* Choose between over 10,000 hotels
* Range from 2 star to 5 star luxury
* More than 3.5million membership sold
* New participating hotels , spas, restaurants and lounges are being enrolled every day
* Total freedom with direct and online booking

Visit : www.hotelexpress.ng
mail: info@hotexepress.ng