Ogeah: Marriot Will Drive Tourism, Hospitality in Lagos

The Managing Director of Mac Folly Limited, Chike Ogeah, operator of Lagos Marriot Hotel Ikeja, in this interview says the facility will spearhead the growth of tourism and hospitality services in Lagos state as well as Nigeria. Chinedu Eze provides the e

Why the choice of a Marriot in Lagos? Marriott Hotels, the signature of Marriott Bonvoy’s portfolio of 30 extraordinary brands is behind the Lagos Marriott Hotel Ikeja. The hotel reflects the newest global design vision for Marriott Hotels, featuring sophisticated and intuitively designed spaces for today’s modern traveller, enabling guests to relax, work and find inspiration during their stay. We are excited to have opened the Lagos Marriott Hotel Ikeja, bringing Marriott Hotels’ transformed vision to Nigeria. Lagos is a vibrant and bustling city with much to see and do for leisure and business travellers. What better place to debut the Marriott Hotels brand in Nigeria with its thoughtful service and intuitive spaces that enable guests to be inspired during their stay. Lagos Marriott Hotel Ikeja offers 206 guestrooms and 44 suites each with expansive views of the city. The spacious guestrooms are thoughtfully designed with contemporary décor and intuitive in-room amenities. Natural colours, crisp lines, purposeful lighting and comfortable bedding create an intimate and peaceful space for guests to get into their best headspace for success. Deluxe walk-in showers and spa-like lighting complete the relaxed experience throughout the room. In line with Marriott Hotels’ newest global design strategy, local accents add a sense of place to the sleek aesthetic. Open workspaces allow for flexibility to connect anytime. The Great room at the heart of the hotel blends modern elements with local touches inspired by Nigeria’s rich heritage and traditional crafts. The multi-use space is designed for guest to socialise, relax and work. The M Club is an exclusive space reserved for Elite members and Club paying guests and provides complimentary breakfast, evening drinks, hors d’oeuvres and premium beverages throughout the day. The M Club also offers the brand’s signature Mind Menu, a selection of delicious snacks and beverages with active ingredients to enhance mind and body. Accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the M Club provides free WiFi, printing services and power supplies to ensure uninterrupted productivity for business travelers.

What motivated the hotel business?

Well the truth is that the hotel is part of the SIFAX group. Primarily SIFAX is in the shipping business and also in the aviation sector. The Chairman of SIFAX, Dr. Taiwo Afolabi, who is really the visionary person behind the project has over the years conceptualised the idea of building a magnificent hotel in Lagos, especially after we had, started the Skyway Aviation Handling Company Plc (SAHCO). Previously I was in the handling company, when it was a government parastatal, which was later privatised and we were now working to together. So we did a few trips, trying to reposition the company and all of that and of course we stayed in different branch of hotels all over the world, top brand of hotels, in Europe, in America. Dr. Afolabi would tell me, Chike why can’t we have that kind of hotel in Nigeria? But being a pragmatist and looking at all the odds you have to overcome to have that kind of brand in Nigeria, I thought he was just dreaming, but he was insistent and he was persistent. And after a while I said to him, Chairman, if you really are ready to do this, I am all-in with you. We started by first getting the land. That was just first situation. After that we started blasting the land because we had to go three floors underneath. We realised that we had to put two floors of underground parking and then the basement floor of the hotel. All that came after we had looked at all the top design, and the top hotel brands in the world and we settled for the Marriott for too many reasons. Marriott is one of the best and cosmopolitan brands that cater for the kind of customers we were looking at.

The upwardly mobile, business executive, relaxed, not anything too conservative, cosmopolitan yet subtle. And we stayed in one or two of their properties in Dubai, especially the Marquis in Dubai, which is a wonderful hotel. We started talking to them and they realized how serious we were because when they give us the figures and what it entailed, we realised that their standards were so high and that is why, if you noticed, this is the first Marriott of this quality in this country. Someone attempted similar brand at some point and I don’t think it even went through. So that gives you an idea of the kind of thing the Marriott really is all about. They came in during the feasibility stage, we looked at all the different architects we could use and all of that and then we started designing this masterpiece that we have here in GRA, Ikeja. Of course, the choice of Ikeja was simple because we wanted to marry aviation and hospitality. You know, when you come into a country the first port of call is the airport. After the airport, the next is where you will stay, the hotel. So we thought with the synergies we have in our ground handling company, we will have to bring him products fresh for the hotel. You know, we thought well ahead that we could marry aviation and hospitality. We felt this is the best thing to do. So we started it, it was not easy. We are very grateful. We have the operations in the port where the real SIFAX shipping off dock and ports and cargo operates. So with their assistance, we could get containers in. We brought in well over 700 containers for this project. The materials we brought in were the standard we agreed with the Marriott. We also brought in artisans from China, from South Africa, from everywhere. Of course, we got our local content always to complement and for them to train because we wanted the best. But at the same time we wanted to also build a reservoir. So those were the kind of synergies we brought in with this project. Not only did we just deliver a first class project, I can assure you that if you go through the history of this project, the number of Nigerians that have upgraded their skills because they worked on this project with us are many. Of course, we had Nigerian architects. We have Nigerian project managers that we all worked together with, including our designers, interior designers. We started almost seven years ago and by the grace of God, following all the government regulations and compliances for height, for safety, for everything and we were able to deliver this project about a month and a half ago. To the glory of God we have directors from all over the world in the project and these have opened different hotels in different parts of the world. This is because when Marriott opens a new hotel anywhere, the first thing they do is that they get their top directors worldwide that will go and head different areas of the hotel. Like food and beverage, human resource, operations and housekeeping. There will always be a foreign technical person that will be in charge. It is these top personnel that begin the training process for the locals. These are people who have had experiences all over the world. They come from America, from South Africa, from Portugal from England; in fact, from everywhere. They said they had never seen a situation where a hotel has been received by the host community with so much enthusiasm. The hotel has always been full since it started. We get up to 85 per cent occupancy over the few weeks we have opened and it is getting better. Of course, you know with a thing like that as big as it is, we ourselves have to be tweaking and re-tweaking the standards to ramp up the training for the Nigerian workers there. So we have to keep improving and improving and improving to be able to get to that standard where we should be same thing, even with the menu the food and the different restaurants we have there. We just have to keep making it better and better and better. But so far so good and we are happy with what we are seeing.

Now the major challenge Nigerian hotels have is power. That is why the prices are very high. So how are you managing that?

Well, the truth is that in the case of power

you talked about, it is very serious. We paid N60 million in the first month, just for power. And the truth is that for an operation like this, once you start everything should be working, from the chillers and will not be switched off. You have all kinds of lighting; you have all kinds of equipment in the kitchen, in the laundry. These are power units and they will consume power. You know, power generally in the world is not as expensive as it is in Nigeria. But you see at the same time we cannot drive our prospective customers with very high tariffs, either in our rooms or in our events. Maybe you want to do something in the ballroom or whatever, so we try and maintain the balance. But for now we seem to be working for the power company; that I can assure you. But we pray that as it gets better, there are still one or two aspects of the business that has not started fully, which will commence next week. Like the wakame restaurant, which

Ogeah