Hospitality Management in Africa – Outstanding, Consistent Service

Benefit from the dedication of one of Africa’s premier exponents of hospitality management in Africa

By linking with Sovereign, you’ll align yourself with one a wealth of experience in premier hospitality management in Africa.

Sovereign is an inspired collaboration of some of Africa’s finest hoteliers, who are passionate about bringing hospitality excellence to the fore. Exceptional service is key to the Sovereign philosophy.

Sovereign’s office is situated in Bryanston, Johannesburg, from where we provide the support and technical skills required to develop and operate hotels and lodges across the continent and the Indian Ocean islands.

We have an acute understanding of local culture as well as international needs and trends. This is why Sovereign is positioned to add tremendous value to investors, owners and asset managers who require exceptional management skills to help ensure their hotels and lodges operate at their full profit potential.

Managing the Varied Demands of hotel management in Africa

What makes Sovereign unique is our ability to create a balance between the financial and human resource considerations of hospitality management in Africa. Combined with our promise to make the experience of every guest memorable, this balance is reflected in our “Best operating practices” philosophy, colloquially called ‘The Sovereign Way’ ™.

Sovereign has a penchant for adopting hotels and, through our inspired service philosophy, transforming them into highly profitable and sustainable entities.

In short, Sovereign is able to deliver exceptional service and to help ensure that your hotel or resort operation provides you with the best possible returns and capital growth.

When you enter into a hospitality management partnership with Sovereign, your contract will cover every aspect of the management process – ensuring that nothing is left undone and guaranteeing that you will enjoy top professional on-going service. Sovereign will give you all the benefits of third party property management. We’ll simply take over the day-to-day responsibilities, yet you will still call the shots since all major decisions will only be made with your approval. Here are just some of the tasks we’ll carry
out:

  • Recruitment of hotel managers and all key staff members.
  • Undertaking all the legal and financial functions.
  • Managing all aspects of human resources.
  • Providing technical support in all areas.

We have extensive international experience in all aspects of hospitality management in Africa and further afield. Our concern is for you and your properties, ensuring that you receive an optimum return on your investment as well as enjoying any capital appreciation.

What you get when you join Sovereign:

All our experience, analysis and recommendations will be incorporated into a comprehensive business plan which acts as the chart to navigate the way forward.The plan covers every area of the hotel, providing an analysis of the hotel’s operating history, market environment, identified capital improvement needs and more. We’ll provide you with activity calendars for planning and monitoring. These disciplines support the marketing plan, ensuring that budgets are met and contributes towards the main objective of increasing profitability and sustainability.

One of the difficulties with mergers is staff morale. We have a wealth of experience in blending teams while simultaneously raising morale. The result is added value from both sides as well as increased profitability.

In particular, we will work with your current team to ensure that their service delivery exceeds guest expectations. This is highly important as it is one of the keys to referrals and profitable repeat business. You’ll find more information on this unique philosophy in ‘The Sovereign Way ©’, a booklet we believe you’ll find very useful. We’ll introduce our renowned Customer Service Improvement Programme, which trains all staff members in fundamental service standards – training that invariably leads to a culture of exceptional hospitality that guests will always remember. We know that such an attitude inevitably boosts room bookings and profits.

You’ll have the advantage of our skilled Revenue Management Team, whose job it is to advise your team on advanced and highly effective revenue management and distribution solutions. You’ll also receive advice on business strategy and system improvements - to name just a few - all with the view of improving your bottom line.

Sovereign has a close collaboration with Voila Events, whose depth of experience in events management and corporate training adds significant capacity to our hotels, particularly in the areas of conferencing, team building and weddings. For more information, visit www.voilaevents.co.za

When you form a partnership with Sovereign, you will be secure in the knowledge that we will work to maximise your profit potential. Here are just some of the major benefits you’ll enjoy:

Revenue benefits

The benefits of achieving optimal Revenue per Available Room. (RevPAR.)
Expert revenue management based on proven standards.

Standards benefits

Programmes designed to increase guest satisfaction.
Highest international service standards.

Management benefits

Not having to concern yourself with daily management issues.
Regular progress reports.
Quality staff selection.
Top financial systems and monitoring.
World class management systems.

Marketing benefits

Provision of cutting-edge e-marketing tools and techniques.
Superb e-commerce presence to ensure optimum sales.
International distribution network.

By linking with Sovereign, you’ll align yourself with one of Africa’s premier hotel management organisations.Sovereign is an inspired collaboration of some of Africa’s finest hoteliers, who are passionate about bringing hospitality excellence to the fore.Sovereign has their head office in Bryanston, Johannesburg, from where we provide the support and technical skills required to develop and operate hotels and lodges across the continent and the Indian Ocean islands.We have an understanding of local culture as well as international needs and trends. This is why Sovereign is positioned to add tremendous value to investors, owners and asset managers who require exceptional management skills to help ensure their hotels and lodges operate at their full profit potential.

What makes Sovereign unique is its ability to create a balance between financial and human resource considerations and its promise to make the experience of every guest memorable. This balance is reflected in our “Best operating practices” philosophy, colloquially called ‘The Sovereign Way’ ™.

Sovereign has a penchant for adopting hotels and transforming them into highly profitable and sustainable entities.

In short, Sovereign is able to deliver exceptional service and help ensure that your hotel or resort operation provides you with the best possible returns and capital growth.

The old days of visiting a travel agent to make a hotel booking are fast disappearing. So too are tedious bookkeeping and administrative systems, which are being replaced by ultra-fast platforms that provide profound information at the click of a mouse.The world is faster and more digital and the result of this technological explosion is that you can obtain far wider exposure - and those all-important bookings – provided you’re signed up with the correct provider.At Sovereign, we offer you access to the most powerful and effective digital sales platforms in the world. This is rapidly being expanded to include SEO, social media and on-line marketing tools to generate high sales for your hotel operation.

Digital marketing tools to capture sales

Through a single portal, you will be connected to all reservation channels – GDS, voice call centres, hotel websites and Online Travel Agents (OTA).

A Central Reservation System (CRS), Synxis, enables you to manage all rate products in a single place.

You will enjoy access to a multi-lingual, toll-free voice reservations network with worldwide spread.

You will be connected to the state-of-the-art Internet Booking Engine, (Guest Connect) which interfaces with your Property Management Systems (PMS) and Revenue Management Systems (RMS) – providing you with superb management and booking platforms.

You will have access to our dedicated management and marketing teams, who continually capture sales opportunities through multiple direct channels.

Our dedicated team constantly drives information on our hotels towards preferred partnerships, which gives them exposure to targeted sales opportunities.

You’ll gain exposure through our website, which is aimed at the consumer market and manages the diverse and often immediate needs of today’s traveller. This includes business and leisure travel, romantic breaks and holidays to spa and golf getaways, corporate meetings and the like.

Advanced digital revenue management

You’ll have total control of revenue with our advanced systems. Instant and comprehensive information is available at your fingertips.

You’ll be able to view a wide range of statistics on your hotels operation, providing you with access to overviews and allowing you to drill down to immense detail on the entire operation.

You’ll be able to analyse trends and determine profit potential, providing extremely valuable information for improved management.

Management information is available through a sophisticated database, allowing you to view monthly reports on this. You can obtain tailor-made reports to ensure you have optimum control over your properties.

A dedicated revenue team will continually analyse your results, providing you with valuable management information.

You will enjoy ongoing advice on how to increase RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room) and profits using all distribution channels.

We’ll coach your staff on how to use these digital systems and how to make the best use of the account management programmes.

Hotel marketing is not an ad hoc arrangement but a profoundly thought-out process, advises Martin Carberry. “It should be planned, sustained, dynamic, offeroriented and evoke action – and, that is, to draw people to your hotel.”At Sovereign you’ll have access to some of the top marketing brains in the country, who have a wealth of experience in the hospitality industry. We believe that marketing should be strategic, systematic and measurable, not only building your brand but ensuring that there is a return on your marketing investment.

The process begins with a thorough analysis of your marketing process, identifying any “gaps” that need to be filled. The entire process is sales-driven since this is the key marketing objective you want to achieve.

You’ll receive a comprehensive marketing audit and evaluation of your existing material, including websites, with suggested opportunities to improve effectiveness.

We can provide you with a new and dynamic corporate identity, including brand and logo. Alternatively we can tweak your existing brand image to update it so that you can capitalise on the goodwill of the past. We can also create specialised sub-brands for you – for instance for a hotel restaurant so that it can have its own identity.

You’ll receive a marketing plan created especially for your hotel which will, inter alia, allow you to capitalise on every seasonable opportunity.

We have high-level website design and coding skills. Creating sites that are sophisticated yet easy to use, and designed to be sales-driven. We incorporate rich visual imagery, sparkling layouts and easy-to-use online booking forms to encourage maximum sales.
We will create the entire spectrum of marketing and corporate material for you - including menus, annual reports, brochures, banners, videos, booklets and so on. These will be designed and written by some of South Africa’s most talented and experienced creative consultants.

We integrate social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and Pinterest into the marketing mix to ensure maximum exposure, increased booking opportunities and relationship building capacity with your guests.

We can develop powerful viral promotions, competitions, promotional offers and the like, to drive traffic to your hotels.
We’ll create a stand-out presence for you at trade shows, conferences, exhibitions, road shows and through cooperative advertising efforts.

We’ll help ensure that people searching on the internet are driven to your website through a combination of SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques and PPC (pay per click) advertising using Google Adwords and Facebook.

We offer a professional PR service for everything from in-house promotions to major special events and launches.

At Sovereign you’re not alone. We will work together – as a team – and ensure that your goals are met and that it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg to get there.We are flexible and will create a ‘package’ that fits your budget to ensure success.Fees generally will be comprised of the following:

Group Marketing Fee
A percentage of turnover
Incentive fees as a percentage of Gross Operating Profit (GOP) and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA)

In short, the fees will be structured to be based on performance and will represent a win-win situation for both parties. Sovereign’s mission is to provide owners with the best ROI and a service of integrity and sustainability.

Our fees are structured in line with industry norms. Sovereign evaluates each property on its own merits and we will negotiate a fee structure that has sustainable and long term benefits for the owner, the property and the operator.