Paul Murray is the General Manager of the popular Bristol Palace Hotel in Kano. Murray has, behind him, over 30 years of rich and extensive experience in the African hospitality industry as a hotel manager, including Nigeria. Murray, in this exclusive interview with Bashir Ibrahim Hassan, GM, Northern Operations, BusinessDay, shares his rich experiences, challenges of operating under Covid-19, how unique and hospitable the people of Kano, his host business home, are, amongst others. Excerpts.
You have been in the hospitality industry in Africa for more than three decades. Could you please take us through the journey of your experience?
I was invited over to South Africa in November 1989 and I decided to have a holiday in South Africa and ended up staying in Africa for all these 31 years. I fell in love with the people in Africa. It absorbed me and, through this journey of running hotels, I got my degree in the United Kingdom, where I’m from, and I progressed.
I have been a general manager for the last 22 years in South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Nigeria twice. But my favourite is Nigeria. I love the way of connecting with the people of Nigeria especially in high-level business, and I have enjoyed it.
I welcomed the opportunity to return to Nigeria during a three-year break in Dubai working for Sheraton hotels.
The chairman called me and we spoke for 15 minutes and we connected straight away. He is a wonderful man. When I arrived, I met with the CEO, which is the son of the chairman. They are wonderful and humble business people.
This place I am now at Bristol Palace has presented the most enjoyable moments I have had in all my life. This is fourth year with the company and it really has been very challenging for all of us, but we have worked so hard to get to where Bristol Palace is today.
How unique is your Nigeria experience — how many hotels have you managed here, and how successful have they been?
In my last 12 years, I have obviously become a trouble shooter in the hotel business and I have been called upon even at the Presidential levels in other countries I have been to, to resolve and sort out hotels that started up and have faded after few months and not been able to deliver these hotels to the owners’ expectation.
Such is this Bristol hotel. I arrived here 8 months after it opened, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the huge challenges of the Bristol Palace in Kano. I will not leave the Bristol Palace because of the people I am working with. The owners have given me 110 percent support and that is very fulfilling. As a result, we have come up to be among the top 3 hotels in Nigeria, at a five-star level but offering prices like a 3-star. We have only just started this journey and we have unique offerings, and a unique style of delivering our services, our food, and giving people a wonderful experience here at the Bristol Palace.
What do you see as the potential as well as the challenges of the hospitality industry in Nigeria?
Obviously, since the COVID-19 (pandemic) in Nigeria since March, everything has changed. We are now living in a different world and COVID-19 is with us, just like the other viruses are with us and it’s not going away. So we have to now look at new ways and opportunities to continue. This is going to be a very big challenge. We started by not closing during the COVID-19. We supported the country as much as possible by assisting the Kano state government and the Presidential task force, which was here.
So we contributed and helped the Nigerian Government in every way possible. Both at the state and federal levels, we are proud to have assisted that way.
I have been working with a skeletal staff of 40 people and I must say I have seen unique qualities coming out from the Nigerian staff. One of them is passion, which I have never seen before. They never complain; they use their initiative; they are motivated; and they’re very proud.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your operation and achievement, and what preventive measures have you put in place for your staff and guests?
I think what is of foremost importance is to follow the COVID-19 protocols. We made a video that we have sent out to all our corporate clients. We disinfect the hotel every two months. We have our own designed face masks, sanitizers, and gloves, and have continued day-to-day hygiene protocols so that we can assure our staff and customers that they are in a safe environment.
I think this is important going forward, and this will never change. It will not go away — we also have to look at our offerings and service. What is important is for all players in the hospitality industry which includes transportation, food, airlines, to do our best. We must keep working together to be able to continue the domestic business in Nigeria. We must ensure that Nigeria gets over this COVID-19. As a leading country in Africa, Nigeria must show to the world what we are capable of doing domestically and, that will attract the international business like we used to have.
What is different and unique about this hotel?
I’m proud about the huge mountain we have had to climb with COVID-19, working together with the CEO. I talk to him every day. I think this is important. As we are not able to plan our business, say monthly or quarterly, at this stage with COVID-19, we have to adopt day by day until it subsides.
In consultation with the CEO, we make decisions on a day to day basis for the business and for the staff to be able to survive and get through the toughest part of this pandemic. I think things are easing off now, and improving day by day, and as things improve day by day, we will be coming up with strategies to make the Bristol Palace provide good quality service and food at a very reasonable price. This is the Bristol brand and we have been consistent.
Has the COVID-19 affected your revenue?
Absolutely, it has affected our revenue. As a result, I have only employed 25 percent of my full time staff. However, these last weeks we have brought back few people, and it is improving slowly. As it improves with our strategy, we hope that we will be able to get back the business model we had before COVID-19.
I don’t think we can ever talk about normalization again. What we have to do is to bring up a different plan, a plan to be able to brace up domestic business.
Nigeria has huge opportunities in domestic business. Being consistent with the Bristol 5-star brand, meeting, greeting our customers, getting feedbacks, we will continue to make sure that our services and offerings are of the best standard for them. Slowly, we’ll do these and other things that we will need to improve to get to where we were before the COVID-19.
Since July 1st — we now call this the post-COVID-19 operation of the Bristol Palace — we have unique offerings for our guests who have suffered through the COVID-19. Understanding our customers and continuing with our 5-star quality and brand, we will succeed.
What makes Nigeria’s hotel business environment different from other countries that you have worked in Africa?
We have 54 countries in the Africa continent, and Nigeria is number 1. I think Nigeria is in the right position to show to other African countries and to the world what it is capable of doing. I have experience from all the staff I have worked within this period of the pandemic to be able to continue working and improving under the conditions of COVID-19. And we have been able to deliver that, and if we keep doing that with other people in the industry making effort to continue operating, we will succeed and also show to the world why we should be number 1 in the continent.
Had you been to Kano before your appointment to manage Bristol, and what would you say about Kano and its environment?
I had not been to Kano before, but I had been to Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Calabar and other places. However, Kano is unique, but they are very proud people and it is good to be proud of who you are because it gives you recognition and the rules of Kano as a northern Nigerian city is important.
It is important to get to know people. They are wonderful people for their cultural heritage — there is so much to know about Kano!
What legacy would you like to leave behind, seeing that you have committed yourself to the hospitality industry in Africa?
I think today, with the large conglomerates of branded hotels, hotels around the world are pretty much alike apart from the individuality of the country.
But African hospitality stands out — the people are natural and delivering services comes from the heart. This is what I have experienced here in Kano, and this is what is making Bristol Palace unique. So we at Bristol Palace have already achieved this through Covid-19 and we will continue from growth to growth.
