The global hospitality consulting and services group, HVS, has set up shop in Cape Town as a springboard into Africa.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), Africa’s travel and tourism industry has a projected growth of 4.9% and accounts for nearly 9% of the continent’s GDP.
HVS, in its 2015 African Hotel Valuation Index, reports that the sector has “incredible potential to help generate growth, create jobs and enable development”.
Managing partner in Cape Town, Tim Smith, says there is a real demand from prospective hotel investors for local knowledge.
“Being based in South Africa will enable us to work more closely with those organisations looking to expand throughout Africa,” Smith said as the company launched its African office. “Africa is one of fastest growing emerging markets in the world with rapidly evolving economies and developing local wealth.”
HVS undertakes valuations for new ventures and handles feasibility studies. It also offers operator selection services as well as a broad range of hotel consultancy work.
Smith says overall demand and investor appetite is growing not least due to increasing transparency in transactions. He believes more companies and individuals are overcoming doubts about risk and are investing in hotels.
Underpinning this optimism is real progress, with major brands signing new developments signalling what HVS terms “another sign of the robust health of the African hotel industry”.
The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group’s Marc Descrozaille in June announced two new hotels would open in Cape Town in the next 10 months, and another in Polokwane, highlighting the multi-billion rand investment the group is making in South Africa. Descrozaille said the company hoped to build 20 hotels in Africa by 2020.
For more information visit www.hvs.com
THINC Africa set for September
It’s no surprise, then, that the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group is a platinum sponsor of HVS’s upcoming Tourism, Hotel Investment and Networking Conference, THINC Africa, which is taking place in Cape Town from 6-7 September 2016.
THINC Africa is aimed at hotel investors, hotel brands and management companies, real estate developers, investment bankers and lenders, fund representatives as well as public and private hotel, tourism and convention agencies.
“Undoubtedly South Africa as a country and southern Africa as a region hold tremendous potential for regional and global investors, lenders, developers and operators from the hotel and tourism industries,” Smith says. “THINC Africa offers delegates fantastic opportunities to network, learn and share knowledge and best practices with their regional and international counterparts.”
Smith says HVS, through hosting THINC events around the world, has learned to break the stereotype of “boring and tedious” events by offering “a relaxed ambience and a focused agenda in one of the most beautiful cities in the world”.
HVS will announce the final agenda and speaker lineup for the conference shortly.
For more information visit www.thincafrica.hvsconferences.com
