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Maputo’s Business Boom Makes For Hotel Renovation Nation

Maputo’s Business Boom Makes For Hotel Renovation Nation

Giant cranes tower over the Maputo skyline, helping raise up multi-story luxury hotels, office and apartment buildings between the ruins of colonial-era structures. This is tangible evidence of Mozambique’s amazing economic growth, which has averaged close to 8 percent a year for the past 14 years.

But it’s expensive to develop new property in Mozambique. Building materials must often be imported. They’re costly and hard to come by. In isolated regions, developers often have to build basic infrastructure from scratch such as drainage and water lines. It’s risky business, according to a report in AfricanBusinessMagazine.

An informal AFKInsider survey of 10 existing Maputo hotels and lodgings showed that half of them were under construction for expansion toward the end of 2014. The hotels ranged in size and scope from a 125-room, full service hotel to a five-room guest house.

“Business is good,” said Amilcar Ferreira, who helps his parents run the six-room Palmeira’s Guest House on Maputo’s Patrice Lumumba. So good that the family plans to expand to 10 or 12 rooms. The guest house is just the right mix of home comfort and professional management, a top-notch lodging that caters mostly to tourists, and these days it’s almost always fully booked.

Palmeira’s guests are from Europe and the Americas, and they’re often headed to the North Mozambique beaches.

“Now that we’ve discovered natural resources, all the hotels are fully booked year round,” said Ferreira. In addition to helping run the family guest house, Ferreira works as an auditor consultant for professional services firm Deloitte.

Land in Maputo’s business district is scarce and expensive, with the focus largely on building multipurpose high rises, according to a report in AfricanBusinessMagazine. For example, a $1.16-billion project is being built on one of Maputo’s major streets, Avenida 25 de Setembro, that will include a hotel, shopping center, offices and homes.

Afrin Prestige

The Afrin Prestige on Rua Ngungunyane was under renovation in 2014 to give the hotel more than 50 percent added capacity — growing from 99 rooms to 155. It’s conference facilities will grow too to accommodate groups such as the Organization of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLC).

Conference facilities are in heavy demand in Maputo and conferences help occupancy, said Afrin Prestige General Manager José Almeida in an interview with AFKInsider.

Mozambique has two Afrin Prestige hotels and two more are planned — one in Nampula, third largest city in Mozambique, and one in the coastal town of Villanculo.

“Tourism is a good investment,” Almeida said. New hotels are coming in but the competition is stiff.

Afrin Prestige is a different type of hotel. Its owner wanted lots of common areas outside the rooms where business people wouldn’t feel confined — where they could relax and spread out. “It’s not a commercial hotel where every square inch is for profit,” Almeida said.

All over the hotel’s common areas you’ll find work by Mozambican artists such as Malangatana, Shikhani and Agostinho Muthimbo. Some of the art was made specifically for the hotel including a metal sculpture of a fisherman hauling in a catch in the hotel lobby — a magnificent piece.

Mozaika

Family owned and operated, Mozaika Guest House started 10 years ago after its owner, Architect Jose Vedor, retired and decided to transform his Maputo home into a guest house.

Now Mozaika has grown to two guest houses and hotel.

“We’re going to create a sub-brand called Moringa to expand the guest house — that is our dream,” said Francisco Junior, who runs one of the Mozaika guest houses. Francisco lives with his wife in Mozaika 1 — a guest house with nine rooms, each different — and an apartment. Mozaika 2, a second guest house, also has nine rooms. Mozaika 3 has 15 rooms and two apartments in a five-story building with more traditional hotel-type facilities than the guest houses, such as a gym, restaurant and lots of parking.

The owner and managers listened to guests and took their feedback seriously in deciding what direction to take the business, Francisco said.

“There was quite a demand,” he said. “From the bookings I see a trend not just internationally but internally for people looking specifically for guest houses because they want to feel comfortable. They’re looking for a place that they can feel at home not too far from their reality at home — that offers all the facilities but not that impersonal moment.”

At Mozaika, 70 percent of guests are business people, but that’s changing. “It used to be 90 percent business people. Now it’s more leisure,” Francisco said. Of the business guests, 60 percent are foreigners.

Lokal 2896

One of the newer guest houses in Maputo, Lokal 2896 Guest House opened in 2014. It’s also among the lowest-priced lodgings and great value for the money. Lokal means local. The guest house is also named for its street number — 2896 Av. Vladimir Lenine 2896 — and the owners plan to open more guest houses, each named Lokal with the respective street numbers as prefixes.

They created the guest house as a business opportunity, said Lokal Manager Luisa Freitas. “We saw there was a need in the market for quality but lower-priced guest houses. Hopefully it’ll be the first of many.”

The Lokal guest house was once a family home built in the 1970s. The owners adapted the space to create the business, adding room and resizing the space. There are seven rooms for guests: three have their own bathrooms and four share two common bathrooms.

Born in Germany, Freitas worked for the French hotel group, Accor, and came to Mozambique nine years ago to train staff in setting up a hotel. She stayed and started her own property management company three years ago. She also works with a U.S. relocation company.

Since the guest house opened in January 2014, 95 percent of it customers have been in Maputo on business. Already the guest house is getting long-term guests.

The owners of Lokal own Ideialab — an entrepreneurial consultancy in Maputo that empowers female entrepreneurship.

Building Outside Maputo

There are other new hotel developments planned outside the capital, fueled by the two important industries – natural gas and coal, AfricanBusinessMagazine reports. Spanish developer Nexar Group plans to build Karibu Residence 1, a luxury hotel, in the village of Palma near where energy company Anadarko made on one of the most important gas discoveries on Earth. The hotel will have Wi-Fi  and will be designed to meet the demands of some of the 10,000 workers in the natural gas industry that are expected in this isolated area.