Tang Palace Hotel: A Four-Star Hotel Located in the Heart of Accra, Ghana

Interview with Sajid Khan, General Manager at Tang Palace Hotel

What is your assessment of the hotel industry in Ghana and Accra? What is the competitive environment?

The hotel industry is quite competitive and you really cannot take it for granted that you will get business. Even those hotels that in the last 20 to 25 years have been very well located should not take the guests for granted or their business for granted. As general manager of three-to five-star hotels, we are very interactive. We meet very often, we discuss our challenges. In my own property, I have to make sure that we have good business, know who our clients are, what our market is, if we are an international brand or not, and how we get our fair share not only for food, beverage and rooms, but also for conferencing. We divide our business into three segments: rooms are the core business, complementing food and beverage outlets, but there is also a big business in conference and banqueting.

Ghana is an amazing destination at the moment. There is a lot of business tourism and a lot of people are coming here. The economy is doing quite badly, though. But the growth rate of Ghana is high and the international perception is that Ghana is doing extremely well. Do you see saturation or an environment in the hotel industry that there is a lot of demand and hotels are generally quite booked?

We are almost three years old and we offer good rooms, good amenities, very good location, and value for money. A businessman who can go anywhere in the world likes to see a good, clean hotel with a good environment.

Definitely, more hotels may come and we will still feel the need for more rooms. I could be wrong, I do not have the correct statistics, but the people coming into Ghana seem to be more business people, not tourists. We happen to be a business hotel as well. We cannot say if there is a growth in tourism or not, but in the last ten years, we had more available rooms in four and five-star hotels and still, there was demand. Now, guests are going into smaller and lower star hotels because there is no availability in the four and five-star hotels. There is a demand for people in the hotel rooms and for more hotels themselves. There will not be a problem when this happens.

How is Accra structured to welcome international West African conferences?

There are a lot of conferences regularly, almost 12 months out of the year. There are different kinds of conferences, from UNDP to the United Nations, ILO, GIPC, and individual corporate clients are also hosting conferences. Conference business is a great business and it is not something that there is not demand for. Hotels are looking forward to such business. I cannot mention the name of the hotel, but since we have a hotel that can cater to 500 conference delegates at the same time, that hotel always sees that kind of numbers in conference. All big conferences go to places that have big venues. Hotels like us that can only cater to 300 people, we can come up with a venue where we can cater to 500 to 800 people.

What is your competitive advantage? What makes you stand out?

Most important is that we are new and we are really a good product. We are almost three years old and we offer good rooms, good amenities, very good location, and value for money. A businessman who can go anywhere in the world likes to see a good, clean hotel with a good environment. Obviously, the most important thing is standard of services. We are there and we are providing that. We are enjoying our fair share of occupancy of rooms and occupancy of other business.

What is your management’s strategy? You decided not to go for a brand and that has some disadvantage, but are there advantages also?

It is difficult to say that there is any advantage. It is more mindset when it comes to dividing the business and how much business we get from direct booking and corporate business. When it comes to corporate business, the corporate clients look at the proximity of the hotel, locations, services, value, what our rates are, if we are doing well. We do not need a brand because with these advantages we are getting our share of business.

Do you organize conferences?

We offer a full-day conference package which includes coffee breaks and lunch, half-day conference packages, seminar packages which include cocktails and full venue for open air functions. All the facilities are there and everyone so far has given us very good comments and feedback.

What is your international reach? Where do your customers come from? Is there a specific region? Are your customers Asian, European, Ghanaian?

When someone hears “Tang Palace” they immediately think it is a Chinese hotel. I have tried very hard to make sure that when you come into the hotel, it does not look only Chinese, but international. We have kept the total theme and the total décor of the hotel in a way that it is not Asian or Chinese. Our clientele is mixed and only 15% to 20% is Chinese, the rest are international from all over the world.

What are your current projects?

We are reaching to expand and we are working to in a few years have more rooms, extensions, and a much bigger conference facility. We have offered and people are interested in taking our brand outside of Ghana and within Ghana and we are ready to franchise and offer management agreements.

Are you looking for partnerships?

Currently, it is very straightforward. The ownership will remain with the owner. We are not looking for any partnership, but we are ready to offer management and franchise agreements in our brand. For example, within our brand, Tang Palace is a four-star, Tang Place is our three-star, and we are ready to offer five-star which is Tang Paradise.

What are the fundamentals in this business?

The key thing is to not take the business for granted. Provide service and keep your standards high. If the sales team goes and sells the hotel, make sure you come up to the standard that what people expect is what you deliver. There are no shortcuts. We have made a point that we refurbish, we renovate the hotel, and we make sure that amenities and services are provided as per our commitment.

How do you see the hotel developing in the next five years? What is your vision for the hotel in the medium to long term?

We would like to see about a 30 to 40% increase in our business and our clients. Ghana is still in a growing situation. Business is growing, we are very hopeful that tourism will grow, and hopefully nothing very disastrous will happen. Ghana is really going the right way and hotels will never be wrong, they will always grow. We are very positive. The hotel business is a gold mine, you only need to manage it well.

You have been in different countries around Africa, how do you perceive Ghana?

There have been challenges for the ruling party to manage. They always have overcome and it is a very stable country.

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