“Before we look at experience we want to make sure that you are emotionally aligned with us. When I say it is not by accident but by design, I have never worked with better people in my career than I have in Dubai,” says Weilers.
This is a different approach to the company’s traditional recruitment in its home country South Africa, where Weilers began his career with Southern Sun 34 years ago and where the majority of staff are nationals. But following the success of recruitment in Dubai, the EQI is being rolled out across the hotels, which Weilers explains will benefit new markets such as Saudi Arabia.
“I am also building a hotel in Saudi Arabia in Jeddah and I know that the Saudisation programme means that I’ve got to employ lots of Saudi nationals and I have absolutely no problem with that,” says Weilers, whether the target for nationalisation is “25% or 100%”.
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“I believe every nation has emotionally attuned people, you’ve just got to find them and bring them into your business model. We’ve just opened a hotel in Nigeria and it is now regarded as the best hotel in Lagos for 2009 [by the Nigerian Hospitality Excellence Awards]. We did the same process there using the EQI and evaluating of people and we’ve got great people working with us,” asserts Weilers.
Expanding on the growth plans of the offshore business — which Weilers set up five years after heading up Southern Sun’s operations in South Africa, where there are 80 hotels — he reveals that this too follows a very strategic approach.
“Our strategy is to work within regions where we can get some critical mass, so we’re not looking at going into regions where we can’t grow our hotels by more than one because we also have a very branded strategy as a group.
“That way, you create relevance in a market and you have the right infrastructure. At the end of the day, management contracts are about logistics, and the further apart and the more you stretch your logistics, the less of service one can be to the product and to your management that are in there. We are very clear that when we go into a region we create relevance within that region and we are highly competitive in the region we go into,” explains Weilers.
Currently, there are nine Southern Sun hotels operating in Africa and the Middle East — two in the Seychelles, two in Dubai, and one each in Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. Upcoming properties include a 350-room hotel in Abu Dhabi, owned by United Group, scheduled to open end 2012/early 2013, and a 390-room and serviced apartments in Jeddah.
“We are busy at quite advanced stages looking at two opportunities in Oman. We are looking at Doha, and looking at King Abdullah City, which is 100km outside of Jeddah. We’ve signed a second management contract in Nigeria in Lagos,” says Weilers.
“Our first growth strategies are in those areas and we’re at very advanced discussions in Tripoli in Libya. I must say that I was extremely impressed with Tripoli — it’s the most fascinating city and it is going through quite a big transformation. It’s one the cleanest cities I’ve seen in Africa for a long time, it’s really incredible, there are very friendly people there, and they’re aligning themselves now to a new growth phase.
It’s one of the richest countries per capita in Africa, so they have very good natural resources that are actually part of the economy and they’re going to spend it wisely into infrastructure and to sustain business and tourism in the future,” he adds.
In addition to seeking out new contracts in these markets, Southern Sun has signed a master agreement with Emaar — owner of the two Dubai hotels — to manage future Emaar four-star deluxe properties following the performance of the flagships.
So, as Southern Sun in South Africa enjoys one of its most “incredible months” following the World Cup, Southern Sun Offshore looks set to continue its own strategic success story, helped along by possibly the happiest staff in the sector.
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