Revamped VCP Hotel Targets Corporate Clients
he Victoria Crown Plaza Hotel in Victoria Island underwent renovation at the beginning of this year with an emphasis on providing no-frills luxury for corporate guests. After a couple of months of upgrades meant to position the hotel as an upmarket boutique hotel, the VCP is now back not only with better facilities but also with a new head for its management team.
The new general manager, Neville Paul, is from Sri Lanka but has been in West Africa for the past five years holding hospitality jobs in Nigeria and Ghana. He confirms that the hotel is getting back costumers lost due to the renovations. “We have 49 rooms and 90 staff. It is a small setup. That’s what makes it unique,” Paul said recently at the hotel. According to him, the size of the hotel ensures that guests get personalised service.
He is especially proud of the personal butler service, something he believes sets the hotel apart from the competition.
Some of the other services available to guests at the VCP include 24hr concierge service, elevators backed-up with UPS, English-style breakfast buffet, wireless internet in all public areas, daily complimentary shoe shine, deep-soaking tub and shower, walk-in closets, internetpowered TVs with wireless browsing keyboard, ipod dock and surround in-room music station and more.
In spite of space constraints that become evident if you take the swimming pool and the gym as examples, the VCP has spacious rooms and is also big on function halls. Different options with the latter mean group sizes ranging from 10 to 800 can be catered for. For the former, there are various configurations including the Classic Single (and Double), Deluxe Suite, Studio, Executive Suites and a Presidential Suite.
It is no surprise then that the VCP Hotel has been the choice of multinational corporate organisations for conferences, training exercises and other activities that demand privacy and concentration. This coupled with the hotel’s location in the heart of Victoria Island’s business district has stood the hotel in good stead for the past nine years.
“It is a cosy, beautiful, quiet environment,” Paul said. “There are also interconnecting rooms for families.”
In reference to services being provided by the hotel, Paul revealed, “We want to take it to another level.” Some of these activities designed to entertain in-house guests and attract new ones include Friday Chops Night, Ladies Night, Sunday buffet lunch and Karaoke Night.
The VCP Hotel is also focussing on the quality of food. To help the hotel get to the next level is Neville Rogers, the new Food and Beverages manager also from Sri Lanka. He is entrusted with overseeing the Alo Alo Restaurant which provides international cuisine with an Italian accent as well as the Onyx Bar and Lounge, a cozy, business-oriented cocktail bar.
These new improvements in both facilities and staff (including renewed training) have given the VCP Hotel a fresh lease of life and should help in getting ahead of the competition in the luxury boutique hotel segment of the Lagos hospitality market.