CRESTA UNVEILS PLATFORM FOR LOCAL ENTREPRENEURS
Cresta Hotels has put out an expression of interest for entrepreneurs to supply the company’s gift shops, especially at Cresta Mowana, where international tourist flock and the curio shops’ sales are over half a million annually.
The call comes as the company intends to empower local entrepreneurs evade COVID-19 pandemic entrapment through its citizen economic empowerment under the theme ‘Bona Botswana Jwa Rona’.
According to the company, the initiative aims to enhance the Group’s gifts merchandise, improve variety of key goods and products used at the hotel and the products to be stocked in the curio shops at its eleven properties.
“Tourism should be able to sustain us, if we take care of our environment, hence we decided let us have a portal of local suppliers for they are an engine of growth,” said Cresta Managing Director, Mokwena Morulane, adding that small medium enterprises (SMEs) are drivers of the economy.
Some of the products that the hotel will source through the Bona Botswana Jwa Rona procurement platform will include pottery, crockery and cutlery, woven goods and artefacts, leather goods, packaged dried foods, hats, cloth items among others.
He said the initiative links with several others the company is doing to improve its status, post COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are catching up on refurbishments to give the properties a new look and feel, spice up our food offering and ensure that we are at the cutting edge of what our guests are looking for,” said Morulane.
He however bemoaned that the activities will be limited by the fi
nancial position of the company, heavily dented by the pandemic.
“Coming out of COVID-19, we have to rationalize our spending,” said Morulane.
In the last financial year, Cresta spent over 114 million on procurement, with 97 percent on the local market.
Meanwhile, Cresta Group Procurement Manager, Ndiye Omphile said the company has plans to increase its spend by five percent.