Chief Executive Officer, Transcorp Hotels Plc, Dupe Olusola, yesterday predicted a bleak outlook for the hospitality business in Nigeria in line with weakening financial position of hotels at the end of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Olusola who disclosed this to newsmen during a virtual meeting yesterday said Transcorp was already working on cost optimisation and survival strategies to ensure it stays in the hospitality business as going concern.
She explained that the pandemic has affected many sectors of the Nigerian economy, with the hospitality as one of the hardest hit. According to her, the industry felt the impact when the Federal Government shut the economy in April forcing all businesses in Abuja, Lagos, and Ogun states to lock up. “It is expected that recovery levels globally will be at 2024 and it is not surprising because government policies which involve the health practice of wearing masks as well as practising social distancing will come up. People are slowly coming to terms that the pandemic happened and so people are re-thinking different business models.
There has been a slight increase in economic activities, however, we are struggling to operate as we used to.
In the quarter ended June 2020, Transcorp Hotels’ room revenue fell to N3.03 billion compared to the N5.88 billion in the same period in 2019 while our losses have been on a month-to-month basis at over N1 billion. Hence, we will be in a loss position at the end of 2020 as we are deeply challenged and we can only hope a vaccine will be found to drive out the pandemic”, She said.