The Protea Hospitality Group is forging ahead with extensive expansion plans on the continent this year, with the first Protea Hotel soon to be built in Nigeria and 10 other properties in the pipeline for the West African country along with Uganda and Zambia.
This will bring to nine the number of African countries in which Protea Hotels is represented and the company is expected to make a separate announcement soon in this regard.
Protea Hospitality Group CEO Arthur Gillis said the company was viewing the African market with much optimism this year, despite the uncertainty facing the global economy. "As political stability and business opportunities increase, they create a greater need for the hotels and we're leading the charge," said Gillis.
"There are a number of countries such as Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda and Angola that are flying in the face of the global economic trend as far as hospitality is concerned. Africa's traditional trading partners have been changing rapidly in recent years, and this is spurring unprecedented growth in regions that have previously not seen the numbers."
According to an African Outlook document, co-authored by the African Development Bank, the OECD Development Centre, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the continent is becoming increasingly integrated in the global economy and in 2009, China became Africa's main trading partner.
"Hospitality groups would be foolish not to be wondering where their opportunities lie and researching which areas of the continent are drawing the largest percentage of commercial travel," Gillis said.
These hotels will create an estimated 1000 new direct jobs in the hospitality industry in those countries and scores of indirect jobs in the supplier industries.
Gillis said hoteliers and developers in Africa were consistently turning to the Protea Hospitality Group for partnerships because of the strong brand equity that each of its brands represents and the company's excellent record of accomplishment in management and logistics across the continent.
"It's Africa's year for development and that means it's also the group's year for development," he concluded.