WHAT IT MEANS

Common complaints about hotels in Africa’s less-travelled countries include sloppy service, drab decor and hefty prices. But as international groups move into the fastest-growing economies, standards will improve.

Travellers on Tripadvisor.com rate some of the top-end hotels in Africa equivalent to the standard of a midrated hotel in SA, yet they charge 10 times the rate. One widely travelled mining consultant says that while he was checking into a hotel in Bamako, Mali, cockroaches ran across the counter. He says many hotels in Africa have been built by the Chinese and have cheap finishes. Sometimes Chinese hotels serve only Chinese food. What is on restaurant menus is rarely available.

But as more and more business people visit emerging African economies in pursuit of minerals, oil and infrastructure opportunities, the hotel sector is catching up fast. International hotel chains are bringing worldclass standards and increasing competition, which, in time, will reduce the costs.

International groups expanding across the continent include Hilton, InterContinental Hotels Group, Carlson Rezidor, Accor and Kempinski. Marriott International, which had only 11 hotels in Africa (eight of them in Egypt), has expanded its footprint with the recent acquisition of the Protea Hotels group.

Manoël Parrent, Accor’s marketing director for sub-Saharan Africa, says the group plans 30 new hotels with 5 000 rooms for the continent by 2016, prioritising Morocco, Algeria, Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya and SA. This is across its economy, midscale and top-end brands in the main cities.

Sun International has six hotels in Africa outside SA but in the year to June these in total contributed only half of the operating