Hospitality consultant and hotelier, Abdulkarim Ahmed, has advised hospitality-based businesses to look into new revenue streams to weather the ongoing economic downturn.
Ahmed, who stated this in a recent interview in Abuja, urged hoteliers to diversify their clientele by looking at potential new markets springing up.
Ahmed, who is the managing director of V-Hospitality, a management consulting firm, said: “this is an excellent time for hoteliers to experiment with a variety of digital initiatives to attract young, affluent, and tech-savvy travelers by leveraging guests’ online touchpoints and providing digital tours, live streaming via social media channels, among others, in addition to promoting local attractions, cuisine, and outdoor excursions.”
The tourism sector and hospitality businesses have been negatively impacted by the pandemic and its made worse by the ongoing war in Ukraine coupled with economic recessions across most countries.
Ahmed, who has had great success with his flagship boutique hotel, Vanern Residence in Abuja, advised hoteliers and other hospitality businesses to work on cost efficiencies, closely examining their businesses’ running expenditures and finding ways to bring these costs down.
According to him, “for instance, you can try to get your suppliers to agree to more flexible terms. By tweaking your sales estimate, you might find a sweet spot between supply and demand that results in steadier cash flow.”
Vanern Residence, he said, was able to weather the pandemic by looking at the lockdown as an opportunity, which led to developing a unique service offering for guests.
He equally urged businesses to “offer your visitors or clients a product or service that isn’t available right now in the industry you work in. Investigate the flaws in your competitors’ products and service offerings, using market research to achieve this.”
