Fresh waters in an arid land
Personal experience inspired entrepreneur to develop Northern Cape hotel group
Fixing surfboards and paddle skis, and selling them, doesn’t sound like an obvious first venture for a young entrepreneur who grew up in the dry Northern Cape.
But as André Thirion explains, if you have lived in Aggeneys and Kathu “you are fascinated with water”. In addition, the Orange River passes through the region, contributing hugely to the province’s economy, which, according to Thirion, is “booming”.
Thirion is the founder and CEO of Country Hotels, a hospitality group that in 13 years has acquired or built 16 properties across the Northern Cape, including in all the areas where he grew up.
Some of those hotels, lodges and inns are located on or near the river. The Orange River Rafting Lodge near the Namibian border is all about the water
it’s also the outlier in the Country Hotels portfolio, being the only leisure-orientated property in a group focused on the corporate market.
Thirion came to choose this model through close observation followed by testing of the market with a small number of hotels before launching an expansion drive. He is expanding this year via franchises across South Africa and Southern Africa.
“I come from an entrepreneurial family,” he says. His great-grandfather traded with farmers in far-flung places, using a truck to transport his goods. “It wasn’t about money. He would bring you coffee and you would give him sheep, ” is how Thirion describes the transactions. Over time, “the trucks became a shop, and the shop became a supermarket”.
Thirion’s grandfather, in turn, had commercial buildings and a shop in Keimoes, and “was quite wise with property”.
“You take up all these experiences, analyse them and form an opinion,” says Thirion, who counted among his youthful experiences a spell at a Western Cape school, which explains the surfboard venture. He matriculated at Upington High School and went on to study marketing.
A first overseas travel experience, with a passport allocation of R5,500, included odd jobs in the hospitality industry, where he first observed something that has guided his thinking about business ever since. Thirion says he found that a restaurant, guesthouse or shop that is owner-managed has a “different DNA” to it. “I am sure I can identify with 90% accuracy whether a business is owner-operated or management-operated especially in the field of hospitality.”
The young entrepreneur banked that overseas travel experience and added to it the lessons he had learnt when he indulged his passion for travelling off the beaten track in his home province. “I realised that when you were staying in rural areas you were often pleasantly surprised, but also sometimes you would be shockingly surprised as far as accommodation was concerned.
“I realised that there was a niche market.”
His first hotel was bought in Clanwilliam, in the Western Cape, which serves as a gateway to destinations eastward and further north; Springbok and Calvinia followed soon after. “We moulded the recipe for about two years, then we started expanding.” The intention was to offer “very good value for money and the best basics we can do”, along with the “best possible service that country hospitality can offer”.
Profit-sharing for staff is part of the business model. General managers in the group get most of their remuneration through profit sharing, which is a “stepping stone” to the owner-operator model. Country Hotels follows lessons Thirion learnt in Europe. “One of our requirements is that the franchisee must be the operator,” he says.
Qualifying financially is only one requirement for an owner-operator. “There needs to be an entrepreneurial spirit and the necessary experience and qualifications. The owneroperator must be a people’s person.”
There is another side to Thirion that helps explain his success: his excitement about what lies ahead. He is enthusiastic about the Northern Cape’s economic prospects and not only bullish, but willing to take the bull by the horns, about Country Hotels’“rapid expansion path” and about the team of “outstanding professionals” that supports him..
When his phone pings, Thirion is “excited”. On his Kalahari farm there has just been 25mm of rain and for a Kathu man, that’s something.