Durban hotelier telling his story

THE government’s “clumsy and impractical” way of trying to draw the previously disadvantaged into the hotel industry could harm the people it is supposed to benefit.

So says leading Durban hotelier Alan Gooderson, who predicts that job losses could be in the pipeline.

Gooderson, who runs the Gooderson Leisure group, says this in his biography, You Can’t Change History, which gives an insight into his life in the hotel industry.

His story, written by Durban journalist Graham Linscott (who writes the Idler column in The Mercury), recounts how the political change in South Africa has had a dramatic and largely beneficial impact on the hotel and leisure industry.

The isolation ended, overseas visitors came in to see the miracle for themselves and the tourism business was boosted by the emergence of a black middle class.

Then, when the government first developed black economic empowerment (BEE), hoteliers faced practical problems, such as where to find “almost overnight” promising management material in a community that had been deprived of such opportunities for generations and then how to train them quickly.

Fortunately, Gooderson had been the first Durban hotelier to employ black staff as waiters, wine stewards and barmen, but BEE called for them to be in junior and senior management as well.

With the government now introducing new rules, the latest broad-based black economic empowerment means that for any company doing business with the government, 25.1 percent of its ownership has to be with a BEE individual or company, Gooderson says.

Thus, if a business cannot find that person or company to buy this new percentage of its shares, it will have to retrench staff because of a loss of business.

Under the new rules, Gooderson Leisure itself will be at a different level, meaning it will not qualify for government business.

“Who invents these ridiculous laws? What is our government trying to do?” he asks.

“They need to bring back apprenticeships for training, do something to meet the terrible shortages we have in skills and not meddle with basic economics in this way.”

Black entrepreneurs and a lot less red tape was what was needed, he says.

The award-winning Gooderson has long been a high-profile and outspoken figure in the industry, always telling it like it is.

Chairman of the influential KZN branch of the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa) for 15 years, he was named Hotelier of the Year in 2000.

He was also on the board of Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, the provincial tourism marketing authority, for six years.

With 59 years in the business, he has seen it all: the highs the lows, the boom times and the bad… the effects of various economic downturns, political uncertainty… the acquisitions and the sell-offs.

He has persevered through it all, remaining positive about South Africa, adapting with changing conditions, diversifying the business from a purely-but important-beachfront operation to eco-tourism and golf tourism.

While he could have ridden out the recession solely on his flagship properties – The Tropicana at the beachfront and the Drakensberg Gardens Hotel, the jewels in the crown – he is in an expansion phase and continues to look for new opportunities.

It might be the worst and the longest recession he has experienced, but Gooderson knows that in hard times, it is possible to pick up a bargain – and the medium-term outcome could turn out to be spectacular, he says.

“We have faith in tomorrow in this land of ours that we call paradise,” says the 78-year-old legend.

Gooderson hails from an entrepreneurial family and when his father Robert, was offered a job in Durban, he upped sticks and set sail from grim post-war England.

Not long after arriving in Durban, he sent a telegram back home telling his family “sell everything and come over… this is paradise.”

By November 1957, Alan Gooderson had arrived, starting work the next month in The Lonsdale Hotel which his father had bought.

Gooderson ran the kitchen, and the costing and control formulas he developed all those years ago has served him for the rest of his career, which is far from over.

Details in the book will prove useful for hospitality students and investors alike, particularly when it comes to such advice about the necessity for putting in a watertight stock control system. There can be no cutting corners either, and no wastage.

Giving an example of how basic the controls sometimes have to be, Gooderson says that staff have often unwrapped toilet rolls and counted that they do indeed contain 500 sheets and are two-ply as stated by the supplier.

Hoteliers have to be constantly checking or on the lookout that they are getting what they ordered.

The hard-working Gooderson family (there were also two brothers in the business), was also instrumental in transforming Durban beachfront from a sleepy “buckets and spades” seaside resort into the pulsating centre of sophisticated entertainment that it became in the 1960s and 1970s.

Alan Gooderson travelled the globe to bring in new ideas as well as cabaret acts and live music (including the famous Blarney Brothers) for Durban’s vibrant night life, the best in the country.

The beachfront strip – The Mile – had turned Golden.

The family rode the wave of success, buying and selling hotels down the years, he says. Gooderson, who by 1980 was operating on his own, even swopped one of his hotels for another over a game of poker.

As for the title of his book, it relates to his motto: “You can’t change history, but you can influence it.”

Ambitious go-getter Gooderson of the Golden Mile has certainly done that.

Gooderson Leisure, which is listed on the JSE, has a current net asset value of R200 million.

The portfolio ranges from traditional Durban beachfront hotels to golf resorts in the Drakensberg, a hot springs resort and eco-tourism resorts in Zululand as well as hotel/ conference facilities beyond the KZN borders.

The book costs R275 and is available at Gooderson Leisure properties (visit www.goodersonleisure.co.za)