… Radisson Academy to debut in Lagos
With the impressive size of the economy, huge hotel pipeline projects and improving number of visitors, especially business travelers, Nigeria’s Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) industry is experiencing significant growth in recent times.
The above is further confirmed by Radisson Hotel Group, which is excited at the development.
As rightly observed by Sandra Kneubuhler, new managing director for Africa at Radisson Hotel Group, Nigeria has a very robust MICE market.
While on a working visit in Nigeria, Kneubuhler, who oversees Radisson operations in English-speaking African countries, said, “Nigeria has a very robust MICE market and it has been a very good education in the last three days understanding this market”.
“What you guys do very well in Nigeria is big volumes. What will be great is to uplift it experientially in order to attract more international MICE travelers”.
Speaking further on the potential of the MICE industry and how to take advantage of it in the Nigerian market, she said that the industry needs to make MICE experiential and offer world-class meetings and conferencing infrastructure, hospitality products and services.
“I believe in what I call experientialism. There are more things we can do to make it more experiential for international travelers.”
To grow skills for the MICE sector, Kneubuhler, who operates from Johannesburg, South Africa, revealed that Radisson Academy, the group’s business school, will be berthing in Nigeria next year.
“Next year, we are going to bring Radisson Academy live to Nigeria. Radisson Academy is our business school and we are focused on training and developing our teams,” she said.
Though Radisson Academy online has over 30,000 training courses available, the new managing director for Africa, said that the most results are achieved when you train people face-to-face.
“This is a face-to-face business and we are doing everything to bring Radisson Academy to Nigeria and I know our team will embrace it and make the most out of it.”
Explaining the rationale for bringing the Radisson Academy to Nigeria, she said that first, Radisson Hotel Group is to be part of Nigeria’s amazing tourism story and secondly, due to the inability of interested Nigerians to get visas for such training.
“If we cannot bring people to the academy in South Africa or elsewhere in the world, then we must bring the academy to the people. It is a very practical decision,” Kneubuhler explained.
Moreover, she reiterated the people (staff members) are the biggest assets of Radisson Hotel Group, hence an intentional and continued focus on them.
“Strategically, we are looking to constantly grow our people because you cannot grow and develop if you do not grow the people”.
Apart from developing the people, Radisson, according to her, will continue to develop products and expand its portfolio at the same time. “We have to constantly impact our existing products. We have a very sustainable approach to our business and bring that to every aspect of what we do”.
The Radisson Hotel Group currently has five hotels in operation and a further eight under development. By 2027, the group hopes to have 2,000 operating hotel rooms in Nigeria.
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