Gaborone Industry Event

The first in a series of Spotlight Travel workshops and exhibitions will take place in Gaborone, Botswana on the 9th of February. The event will be promoting travel from Botswana to Southern Africa countries and the rest of Africa, as well as domestic leisure and conference tourism within Botswana. For delegates attending, there’s the opportunity to meet and network with 20 exhibitors from hotels, lodges, airlines, tourism boards and other suppliers. There will be two sessions on the 9th of February – the breakfast session takes place between 08h00 and 11h00, whilst the late afternoon session takes place between 17h00 and 19h00. The venue for the first workshop will be Cresta Lodge in Gaborone. For more detail, email norah@thebusinesscentre.co.bw or visit www.spotlightworkshops.co.za. Alternatively, contact Derek Houston - derek@houstonmarketing.co.za;  +27 82 464 0901.

First Foray into Rest of Africa for City Lodge

 The City Lodge Hotels group has announced its first foray into the rest of Africa, through the development of a 106-room Town Lodge in Gaborone, Botswana.

 It is expected that the hotel – which is based on a land and building lease agreement – will open in December 2012, at a total development cost of around R61 million. Earthworks have already begun on the project.

 The City Lodge group has been investigating African expansion opportunities for several years, but this is its first announcement that a new hotel will be built outside of its South African base, where it already has 52 hotels offering 6,440 rooms across the Courtyard, City Lodge, Town Lodge and Road Lodge brands. Town Lodge is essentially the group’s 2-star brand.

 The group is continuing to analyse opportunities that exist in several Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and is also looking into possibilities for its brands in East and West Africa.