Thailand: Minor Hotels has appointed a regional director for Africa and plans to launch its oaks extended stay brand on the continent.
Mark Havercroft, formerly of Legacy Hotels, has been appointed as Minor’s regional director for Africa.
He says the company is in a better position to grow its business in Africa than the major hotel chains: “Where the big brands often falter and expose their vulnerability is when it comes to fast and flexible adaptation initiatives to meet the market demand of the moment. In effect, they find themselves unable to leverage only their international dominance in order to adequately protect their hotel owners and investors. The very challenges that Africa poses are what attracted Minor Hotels to the continent in the first place; to capture the burgeoning and in many ways unique traveller market. While traditional international thinking has been to focus on catering only for four- and five-star guests, this may not be a fail-safe approach, and Minor Hotels is acutely aware of the need to also invest in alternative options that will accommodate a wider range of leisure and business travellers at lower consumer price points.”
“Therefore, while we have our luxury brand Anantara in places such as Mauritius, Zambia and Mozambique, and our city and resort four-star brand Avani in Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique, Seychelles and Zambia, we know we’d be remiss if we ignored the mid-market space, for both business and leisure travellers. To this end, we’re looking increasingly at the serviced apartment/long-stay hospitality market in strategic locations across Africa, introducing it via our Oaks Hotels & Resorts brand. Certainly, Covid-19 is a gamechanger, perhaps most significantly for the tourism and hospitality industry. As the world emerges from the other end of the pandemic in the future, however, we believe that it will be the game-changer brands, those that are agile and adaptable, that will recover fastest – and restore investor confidence. It is in markets such as those on the African continent, we believe, where the real future potential lies,” he added.
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