We're Committed to Local Market - Sheraton GM
Mr. Alexander Gassauer, New General Manager of Sheraton Hotel West Africa who has already taken up his post of managing the Sheraton hotels in West Africa spoke to Justina Okpanku on his plans
Sheraton is thought of primarily as a hotel for the rich. Is this still true? Sheraton in Nigeria is like any other Sheraton hotel in the world and every general manager has different priority.
What are your priorities?
My priorities are more on the local market. I was disappointed on the frequency of the local citizens in our restaurants and entertainment. This is what I am trying to change now. I want to get the impression that we are a hotel in Nigeria with Nigerian customers, cuisine and food.
Here , we are concentration on Starwood policies. Yes, all the standards, everything Starwood. We have a new Sheraton beds in place. It is called 'Sleeper's beds'. It's a special bed which is created for Sheraton. It is ordered by a special manufacturer which is by Starwood specifications. It's very precise. What we are going to do here is continuing the innovation of the rooms.
So far, we have completed 60 rooms. It's an ongoing programme. We have to change The IT Office. The business traveller today is completely thinking different than he was a couple of years ago. Whereas when the hotel opened we used Telex today, we are using internet. I don't know what next. Definitely, we have to change our IT Office to offer better services. when people come here they will be proud to be associated with us.
Our guests travel with their PCs, they come with their laptop. So we provide wireless access for every guest in each room so that when they come with their laptop they can connect to the internet.
We have meeting rooms, technical equipment. I cannot say how many conferences now, but we have a lot. I'm talking about meetings. Lagos is not a conference centre. Abuja is more a conference centre than Lagos because of the seat of power.
That means you will reduce the rates for naira paying customers?
I'm talking on the restaurant side. Of course it is not for the masses. It will always be a five star hotel. This is clear. You have got this in London, you have got this in Paris. Not every Englishman can afford the Grosvenor House in London and not every Frenchman can afford a five star in France. These are hotels for the upper class . A Mercedes Benz is not a car that can be bought by an average person. Our cuisine are expensive because it is imported. But a local dish must not be sincerely expensive. We may be 10 60 per cent more expensive but you have the quality and standard. So this is justified.
I don't want to out-price ourselves right from the beginning. It must be affordable. But what I see now in our restaurants already is I see competitive prices. If you look at the prices of alcoholic beverages they are very very competitive.
Last year, a general cashier with Sheraton Lagos allegedly stole huge sum of money from the company. For the sake of clarifying the situation, what exactly happened to Lawrence Agada?
First of all, I might say this happens anywhere in the world; it happens in any business around t he world. . If you have a dishonest person, he will be dishonest herein Nigeria or in Alaska or Japan or in South Africa. A dishonest person is a dishonest person. You can put rules and regulations in place for every possibility. What you need to do which the hotel has done is to keep all its principles in place , to catch this thief. At the moment the court case is ongoing and I assure the legal system in Nigeria will take care of it. If he is found guilty, I guess there is penalty form him.
I have no idea if Sheraton recovered the money or not. To be honest, this was before my time. I have no idea on how much was involved. This happens anywhere.
What is Sheraton doing to change the bad image? It is believed that for a cashier to be involved with a huge sum of money unnoticed for a long period, presumably the hotel have problem with accounting system in the past.
In this country, compared to Europe and other parts of the world, people pay cash. It is a lot of cash payment here. The chance of someone getting away with some cash is much more than in Europe where you use the credit card to pay for goods and services. So you have a lot amount of cash turning over on a daily or monthly basis. And these people must be caught. It is a matter of time. We are trying something to prevent any single criminal activity. If somebody is criminal, he is a criminal. And one day he will be caught.
Who is Mr. Alexander Gassauer?
I am coming from Austria. I was born in Vienna, Austria, into an hotelier's family. I worked in various hotels in Europe, Africa and Middle East before joining Sheraton (Starwood group). I have been abroad since 1974 in 16 different countries. I have worked for Sheraton hotel and Starwood properties for the past 20 years. I worked in Cairo and Damascus as Food & Beverage Manager and Resident Manager respectively before the position of General Manager. I had worked with Sheraton hotels in Majorca, Doha, Dubai, Algiers and lately Tunis as General Manager before joining Sheraton Lagos Hotel & Towers.
I joined Sheraton Lagos Hotel & Towers, Ikeja as the new General Manager in March 8, 2004 and I will equally double as the Area Manager, West Africa, for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Inc. I am married with children. My wife is here; she is enjoying Nigeria as much as I do. My children are coming during this Summer period.
First of all, I want to come here. It is not they sent me here. I wanted to be here. I have worked with Nigerians in both Dubai and Doha.
I was the first general manager of an international hotel chain in the Gulf to recruit Nigerian nationals in the late 90s. Where do they normally get their staff? from Far East, from Europe and others. I said no. Let's get some people from Africa. I employed 25 Nigerians; great people, excellent people, no problem in Dubai, Doha anywhere. Most of those people are very good.
I think they are motivated by the excellent condition of service and other factors like training.
I believe in training and manpower development. People are the most important asset in a hotel. Of course we train and retrain. I know how I deal with the people here. I'm part of them, that's the most important thing. We are a team, we are one . I'm as good as everybody else.
We will relaunch Starwood Press Club in September. It is for Tourism journalists to get Starwood Press site that will give you all the information you will get from Starwood. We are part of it. Every employee that works in Sheraton is a Starwood employee.
You talk of advertising and publicity. What we do when it comes to advertising, we are not advertising the brand. We are not doing brand advertising. What we are doing is we are advertising a product. So, you can see that when it comes to food and beverage promotions, when it comes to special offers and things like that.
Are you concerned about Abuja having such a strong market? What are you developing?
This country has no leisure tourism. It is immigrant tourism when who live abroad come back or those who come back because their foreparents emigrated from here. This is a tourism which should be developed much much better. It is because there is a lot of movement in America as people go back to their roots. This is an area government should look into with proper infrastructure for the people who want to come here. They want to come; they want to see how they were put onto boat, enslaved and things like that. This can be done.
Is Sheraton committed to social responsibility?
Every company is out to make profit, that's for sure. Otherwise, you won't be able to pay your staff for instance. But it is the responsibility of every company to look to the local community and look for the social welfare of the less-privileged. Starwood has got its global community service which is with UNICEF. It is a pressing matter that is why we ask every guest to pay $1 to UNICEF. It is not something which the money disappears. The money is r emitted to UNICEF in Geneva from every Sheraton around the world. I was told there are programmes Sheraton hotels in Nigeria have identified with.
What specific challenged do you face?
We run a lot of generator here; we spend a lot on diesel. I don't know, but they should be a way to get around that. This is something that should be looked into. What is essential is for any community, society, municipality or the government to provide the essential services. I understand the government here is trying to get things work.
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