‘Malawi is safest country in Africa for tourists’

Roger Gardner, Sunbird Tourism Limited chief executive officer will soon leave the country for South Africa after serving in Malawi for three and a half years. In this interview with our reporter JACOB NANKHONYA, he talks about life in Malawi and his contribution to the tourism industry.

Q

: How can you describe your journey with Sunbird in Malawi?

A

: I took over a company in many ways was administratively healthy, but crying out for improved investment and expanding. So while here, I embarked on a number of projects. I started something in Sunbird’s life that will take it to incredible heights.

Q

: So what is your next destination?

A

: I will be managing a new venture Sunbird has just bought called Sunbird Hotel Stay from January 2017.

Q

: What is Sunbird Hotel Stay?

A

: Sunbird Hotel Stay is a loyalty card for sunbird and it offers people national benefits at Sunbird Hotels like discounts in restaurants, accommodation, upgrades of rooms automatically so much that you don’t have to ask for it. While all our guests are important to us, our Sunbird Loyalty guests have the edge on those. While the take up of membership has been good it’s not nearly where it should be and Sunbird management and I have agreed that I now have a golden opportunity to build Sunbird Hotel Stay. This is probably the most exciting hotel loyalty scheme in the world, if you go on the net and check the other loyalty schemes none of them offer the range of benefits that our card offers. It gives you free access to international lounges at airports in the rest of the world; it gives you discounts in air tickets.

Q

: What could be your lowest moment while you have been managing Sunbird Tourism Limited here in Malawi?

A

: You know I am not a person who has lows, I am the eternal optimist. Perhaps you cannot call it a low moment but possibly my biggest disappointment. I guess it has to be the failure to bring about the recapitalisation of Sunbird as quickly as I would love to. It would be that I did not see the conclusion of Sunbird being recapitalised and raising serious money and doing some of the wonderful projects that would make it become one of the world players.

As I said I do not have low points I wake up every day facing another challenge. I have never had to plan my life in my whole hotel career, the challenges and opportunities have always unfolded right in front of me on a daily basis. I have not always gotten it right, I am often in trouble, but its life and that does not worry me. I pick myself up and go and do another day’s work and try to do better than before.

Q

: Where do players in the hospitality industry need to polish up?

A

: It is important to recognise that I have worked in the countries where where they achieve levels of service, but you always have a feeling that it is not sincere, it is not genuine. But working here in Malawi I felt there was sincerity, the friendliness, the warmth and willingness of the staff is so genuine and you know that you are the winner.

With those factors in the favor of Malawi you simply can not lose, what you need to do is build on it with serious training programmes. Sunbird has invested hundreds of millions of kwacha every year in training staff to improve service delivery, occupational health and safety. There is a right time and place for things to happen in every life of a company or sector and right now I think that Malawi is at the crossroads where things are going to happen in the tourism sector.

Q

: Do you think the industry is growing?

A

: Yes, Malawi will become a much more important world player in the tourism industry soon. People are looking for alternative destinations, we have to be the safest country on the African continent for an international visitor. I think that it is a combination of things that make Malawi a worthwhile destination for tourism and investment.

Q

: How best do you think Malawi can build on this?

A

: By focusing on infrastructure and I know that efforts are being made, but perhaps we should speed up the process of us crossing through the crossroads and making that breakthrough, I think it is all now to do with infrastructure and if efforts that are being made now can just be concluded and we can move past this uncertain stage with regard to utilities service of electricity, water and things like those. n