Arthur Gillis looks to Africa for hotel expansion

With a swimming pool cantilevered two stories above the concierge portal, I pulled up my cabriolet with an air of high expectation and a warm smile from the man in a long coat. “Welcome to Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa.” I have come to meet Arthur Gillis over a cappuccino, the man who has steered Protea Hotels into an African success story over the last 25 years with a spread of three- and four-star hotels, and now has taken a new leap into the future with the spectacular five-star African Pride Hotels.

People are the cornerstone of the hospitality industry, despite awe-inspiring architecture and interiors; one is immediately engulfed by the intelligent ambience of the personnel.

Gillis greets me with his big, warm handshake – a good start – and coffee is ordered.

What determines the success of anyone hotel?

People. Many make the mistake of finding a location then attracting guests, but it is really the other way around.

First, understand what guests want, and supply their needs. Everything – the food, the decor and, most critically, the location – is
client driven.

One cannot but feel the warm embrace of your staff. How do you achieve this?

We have a staff complement of 14 000 who bring different skills to the party, but the common factor is attitude. We hire for attitude, then train for skills.

A person with enthusiasm to learn is far more valuable than an achiever with an impressive CV who feels he/she has come to the top of their position.

Within the group, it is more a family. This is a career with a great spirit of co-operation and a genuine love of people.

We have a long waiting list of applicants who want to become part of us.

Have you ever fired anyone?

Oh, yes, a few times. Occasionally, we get our staff selection wrong. But I live by a simple maxim: “Be fired with enthusiasm. Or you will be fired... with enthusiasm.”

We promote from within. There is always a conveyor belt of young entrants into our group.

The danger, of course, is that 20 years from now there may be an older population in the group.

What kinds of problems do you face regarding your staff?

Over-enthusiasm, particularly when selling the reservations. It is one thing to be competitive, but there is a time when you reach the tipping point and you have sold the client. At that point, stop selling and conclude the deal. Do not over-promise. Rather under-promise and over-deliver.

I have a simple formula: SUCCESS = RESULTS – EXPECTATIONS. If the expectations are higher than the delivery, you have an unhappy client. If the expectation is moderate and the results exceptional, you have won a very happy client.

The same principle can be applied to many businesses: give five-star service at three-star rates; it pays off.

How do you anticipate a guest’s needs?

Firstly, understand the guests. If you are anticipating overseas tourists: are they coming as a group; a couple; alone; on a pleasure trip; an exploration of the country; to shop; where do they want to be; or are they on business; to see the government departments; conference or exhibitions; or business in the CBD? Where do they come from (Western European guests, for example, coming as couples, expect two single beds; English anticipate double beds.)

Catering for sports groups is a special need.

Some of those rugby players are giants, so we do not offer king-size beds, we go that much further and create XXL beds! This, when planning a hotel, impacts on the architecture – larger beds require extra space in the room; that space translates to wider spacing of the walls which impacts all the way to the basement where pillars for the foundations are wider spaced in the car parking area.

What errors have you seen in your competitors?

The common failing is the ego-driven hotel where the owner wants to stamp his own, or his wife’s, personality onto the guest instead of understanding what the guest is really wanting.

I have seen a hotel built on a mountain top with spectacular views, but far away from where conference guests want to be, and exhausting hours away from the airport, shopping or tourism attractions.

Furthermore, there is the inability to change to market forces, new technology, new social and cultural needs.

What changes have you had to adapt?

Here at Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa, the laptops are located right here in the coffee lounge.

People would far sooner be alone in the crowd with a very warm atmosphere than isolated into a “computer room”.

It is an ever vigilant process.

You began 25 years ago from a low capital base; what was that journey like?

Otto Stehlik [executive chairperson of Protea Hotels] and I joke that “we started with no money and we still have most of that left!” We have had amazing publicity over our expansion success, but all those words and television coverage mean little unless they are the genuine accolades of our guests.

In 2007, we sold the group to an Australian syndicate that had the misfortune of coming into the market at the cusp of the financial crisis. Its shares plummeted 90% overnight and we found ourselves in a position to buy back our own product. We were fortunate to have a strong partnership to fall back on, and called on the original investors.

We have a 40% black economic empowerment component, great guys – 30% Investec and 30% management – all of whom share risk across the board. We are geared not to own the buildings in which we operate [Rabie owns the Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa building, and African Pride Hotels has undertaken a 45-year lease over it].

In new acquisitions or setups into Africa, we have at least a 50% stake taken up by local investors. It makes sense to have local knowledge – not only of guests’ needs, but locations, mood swings of the government, tax and local tourism requirements.

Is tax a problem?

Never. We are very happy to pay taxes so that the government can spend on roads, airports and all the infrastructure to keep this country and other African countries improving and running efficiently. They look after us, we look after our guests.

Take a SWOT analysis on the group: your strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats?

Strengths: We are the largest group in Africa with the best strategically located hotels; this is handy for groups dealing with a single operator when country-hopping. We have a loyal client base. (Clients are defined as those organising groups’ or individuals’ travel. Guests are the people who travel and are accommodated in hotels.) Our staff are motivated, well skilled, and enjoy being part of the family. People are our strength.

Weaknesses: People rarely leave. Staff opportunities are lessened by the lack of turnover. That could also be put down as a strength!

Opportunities: Africa. We have a strategy in place to grow across the continent. We will continue to take in new 50/50 partners. We have a feeling for Africa that few others seem to have: we do not see ourselves moving into the international arena.

Threats: Oversupply. The over-building of smaller operators that, once open, realise their investment is in a highly competitive field and – with the world recession restricting much travel – are forced to cut prices drastically in an attempt to stay alive.

People are your mainstay. Does that translate into corporate social investment?

Yes, it does. Each hotel adopts a charity of its own choosing. The staff enjoy the enrichment of reaching out to those they identify as in need.

Every year, they compile a thick book of what they have done and what they plan in the future.

I hear you are enthusiastically behind an outreach programme called Reach For A Dream.

Reach For A Dream is a most amazing programme. It listens to the dreams of children who have a short life expectancy and tries to fulfil their dream before they die.

We had one little eight-year-old girl who wanted to be able to go to Shoprite to buy a black Barbie doll. We made her dream come true. We took her shopping and gave her a trolley to fill up with gifts she could take back to her other friends in hospital. While she was out, we sent in a team to brighten up her ward.

Sometimes the requests are so heart-renderingly simple. In a Johannesburg hospital, a little boy, before he died, wanted to feel what it was like to put his feet in the ocean. This dream was realised. We treated him, his family and nurses like the VIP guests they were.

What was your experience of the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup?

There were some convulsive hiccups, but we were well positioned to take advantage of the influx and had good occupancy rates. We hosted 27 of the 32 competing teams in the World Cup, which is a source of great pride for us – both as a hotel group and as a South African-owned company.

Our vision, though, is to reap the rewards of the World Cup way beyond 2010. Much has been made of the fewer than expected foreign visitors to the tournament without acknowledging the global focus on our country thanks to the millions of fans who watched the tournament on TV.

I think we have succeeded as a country in winning over legions of new fans around the world who now have South Africa on their ‘to-do list’. ▲

Royston Lamond