The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Transcorp Hotels, Dupe Olusola, has said that the hospitality group is aiming to expand its operational footprints across the country and even to the African continent.
Olusola disclosed this during an investor call on Friday.
This disclosure comes a day after the company informed investors via a corporate filing on the Nigerian Exchange Limited that it had divested its 100 per cent stake in Transcorp Hotels Calabar Limited to Eco Travels and Tours, an indigenous hospitality firm.
She said, “The focus for us going forward is expansion, ensuring that we can achieve more footprints in the hospitality business not only in Abuja but across the entirety of Nigeria and then to transition to Africa. Immediately, we are taking advantage of the opportunity within our premises to bring on board an event centre that would accommodate three to five thousand people and we are excited to say it will be launched in quarter three of this year.
“We are very confident that this would encourage and attract further business that goes outside of Nigeria to us. We are also excited to be talking about the development of a new five-star hotel in Ikoyi, Lagos.”
On the key drivers of its performance, the Transcorp MD said, “To ensure our performance, we will focus on key growth drivers to ensure that we are continuously well-placed to take advantage of the changing industry and economy as well. The enhanced use of our digital platform, Aura, ensures that we can revolutionise how we drive bookings, engage with our guests and drive revenue.
“Also important is the need to upgrade our technology and enrich our guest experience. We are dedicated to optimising our operational costs without losing quality. We are confident and optimistic that we will maintain our performance through 2024 and beyond.”
Olusola went on to state that the immediate concern of the business was its Ikoyi project, which had been delayed due to regulatory constraints.
She said, “Our focus right now is our Ikoyi, Lagos project and it was a bit delayed due to a lot of regulatory issues, but we are happy to say that we have acquired a bit more land. Right in the middle of making progress with this process. We are right now in the middle of closing with most of our vendors for construction as well as finalising our fundraising.”
“So we are quite confident that we will not be reducing our footprint, but we will be growing within the next two to three years within the space.
Meanwhile, the Chief Financial Officer of Transcorp Hotels, Oluwatobiloba Ojerinde, in her presentation, shared the firm’s financial results performance for 2023.
Ojerinde stated, “We recorded a gross profit growth of about 72 per cent in 2023. Also, we recorded an increase of 24 per cent in operating expenses from N13.9bn in 2022 to N17.3bn in 2023 and this is attributed to improved operating activities.
“At this point, it is worth noting that we experienced an increase in our income-to-cost ratio, which reduced from 91 per cent to 85 per cent in 2023 which reflects our emphasis on operational efficiency at the company and has enabled us to deploy several cost-saving strategies despite inflation and the naira devaluation that is affecting our operations.
“I would like to share some of the drivers of our performance. In terms of revenue, we positioned ourselves to take advantage of the resurgence in the economy, increased business activities and the political season, which drove revenue across our business lines. Also, we leveraged the learnings from the COVID era and continued to diversify.”
