By Okorie Uguru
The General Manager of Lagos Continental Hotel, Mr Christoph Schleissing has said the relative stable business climate in Nigeria is creating a conducive environment for top hospitality outfits like the Lagos Continental Hotel to thrive. He explained that in the last few months between 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, the Lagos Continental Hotel has posted positive result as a result of healthy patronage mostly from inbound tourists visiting the country.
Schleissing said: “I came in August. In August, we just came out of the valley. You know business actually dropped. There were many factors for that. So, we came out of August, and went into September, October November, and December. These last four months of the year 2024 were extremely positive. I think the most positive month was December. Still everybody talks about December. You know how well December impacted on the hospitality industry, particularly in Lagos with the Detty December.
“I think the upswing of Detty December continued into 2025. When they asked me to do the budget, I would say in the last four months, we had fairly clear vision of what we want to do with our prices. But we were not 100 per cent sure how the prices would be accepted in the market because obviously the prices went up fairly heavily because of the exchange rate …
“You know that we have just finished the first quarter, it was very successful. You can see how April is developing. What we have on the books.. We actually look at it in the sense of what kind of business is booked already? In general, individual business is booked zero to three days. Group business is booked, if you’re lucky, ten days in advance. Last year we got very big group booking for this year’s November, and for August and April. We have very big group coming in April. It is not local group business, it is international.
We have one in April, one in August, and we have a very big one in November. So, once we have these three big pieces, like already confirmed on the book and the first quarter came in very strong, April developed very strong, so we are extremely confident that we are going to achieve our budget this year. What we noticed, there is a lot of focus from abroad, into Nigeria. We see a lot of companies coming to Nigeria. There is a lot of interest, for example the visit of the crown-princess from Sweden, Victoria, she came and they opened a new trade office in Lagos. I think these are very positive signs. Let’s say the exchange rate has somehow stabilized, and the energy price is stabilizing. So, it looks like a more positive environment to do business as it was in 2024.”