They call him Mr. Class. Barrister Stephen Omamuli is an icon in the hospitality industry. Within 10 years, he has turned the Class Suites brand into a major player in the hospitality industry. With 13 branches in six locations- Opebi, Ogudu, Agege, Oregun, all in Lagos, Ago-Iwoye in Ogun State and Jabi in Abuja, Class Suites has grown to become a super brand and Stephen says their core strength is customer service.
In this interview with MAYOR AKINPELU, Omamuli shares with us the secret behind the success of the Class Suites brand. Excerpts…
Class Hospitality has moved from being a solely management company to become a major player in the hospitality industry, tell us about the transformation.
Class Hospitality is the parent company which was established in 2004. Between 2004 and 2006, what we did mainly was managing hotels for other brands and setting up other hotels. And we thought it wise that since we’ve been in the business for six years, it was time for us to launch our own brand. That was what gave birth to the Class Suites brand. The Class Suites brand started with a 10-bedroom signature style boutique hotel in August of 2010 to showcase to investors and other people that we were managing their hotels what we could do and to show them the kind of hotels that we would like them to do and put in the market.
How far have you gone with Class Suites because you seem to have a chain of hotels now; how did you move from the original Class Suites to other brands that you have now?
Basically, Class Suites started with The Signature brand on Agbaoku Street, Ikeja. The second one came up at Agege by Agege Stadium. When we made up our mind in 2018 to let go of other branded names and doing just Class Suites, we spoke to owners of a few other brands and told them our intention. Because they didn’t want to let go of our style of management, they considered and allowed the change of name from whatever brand they bore before to Class Suites. So, that gave birth to the third branch which formerly was Cottage and we then opened the fourth branch of Class Suites in Agege. We acquired two other hotel properties in Opebi, making the fifth and sixth branches. Then we acquired another branch at Oregun, Alausa area, making it the seventh. That is how the brand grew to where it is today. Now, we are about to open the first branch of Class Suites outside Lagos, Abuja to be precise.
What informed the plan to spread out to Abuja?
The decision to spread out actually are two. First, we did a re-branding and I discovered that the way you put out your brand determines what you attract. It is spiritual. We consulted a brand specialist who changed our logo and gave us peacock as the new logo. If you look at peacock, when it spreads its wings, it goes wide and displays a lot of colours. And if you read about the peacock, it talks about whatever is it spreading wide to different locations. That is one reason. The second reason; majority says we expend so much in Lagos, that we are able to get a lot of clients from outside Lagos. When our clients based in Lagos and the ones from outside Lagos started asking that ‘don’t you have other branches in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria’ and the demands kept increasing, we then decided that if we were launching out, our first target should be the capital of Nigeria, Abuja, where our first set of clients would be our existing customers that always have one thing or the other to do in Abuja.
What is the state of things with the Abuja plan?
The Abuja branch is about 80 percent ready. Our target was to open it before Christmas 2021. But the ways things are going now, hopefully before the first or second week of January 2022, we should be able to launch it out. It is a 30-bedroom hotel with a spa, a swimming pool and a sit-out area by the pool that can take 80 to 100 guests. It is located in a nice area, it’s on the same road where you have the Embassy, international schools, a big hospital, the Jabi Lake mall and superstores.
After Abuja, what next?
After Abuja, to be honest, our plan for 2022 is to consolidate other branches that we have in Lagos. We are coming back to work on branches that need retouches, renovation and upgrading. That would be our priority. We are also targeting to have branches in two other cities in 2022; Port Harcourt and either Kaduna or Kano.
In Lagos, you concentrated mainly on the Mainland and yet to have a branch on the Island, is it deliberate?
We are hoping to go to the Island as well. We would love to have a place on the Island. We have been searching but we haven’t really got a befitting place. We’re also putting it in view for 2022.
The Class Suites brand seems to have grown considerably in the last 10 years, what made that possible?
Two things accounted for that. One is, personalized services. We don’t do mass produce service to our clients. We take their needs individually. It is like a hospital; you don’t give all your patients the same treatment. The second is, we pay attention to details. As time moves, we move with time. We consider things that make our guests comfortable. We look at things as little as switches and sockets in the right position, the modern style of furniture in the room and other things. Above all, our customer service is what has really been helping us.
When was the turning point for the brand?
That was when we made up our mind to focus on Class Suites as a brand and push the brand instead of running brands for other hotels. That was the turning point. The real reason why that happened was because when we were running for other brands, there was always conflict of interests. You are trying to manage someone else’s dream, there is a limit to how you can express yourself. Hospitality is about expressing yourself. When someone else’s dream is handed over to you, you try to be struggling with that person’s dream and your own dream. So it gives conflict of interests and it affects what you can do for the end users which is the guests at the end of the day.
Class Suites brand now relies a lot on technology, what informed that decision?
Times have changed now. The average guests are not as patient as they used to be 10 to 15 years ago. Everything moves fast now. They need to check out things on the internet and with the click of a button on their smartphones they go to the internet, check the locations, the facilities you have. We introduce a website for them to be able to access and see other things, go through the OTAs online to get a wider coverage on Instagram, Twitter and what have you. We just try to reach them and make them understand that look, we’re just a click away from them.
There are so many hotels already, especially in Lagos. Is it competitive or there is room for more hotels?
There is room for more hotels, although it is competitive. What I keep telling most hoteliers is very simple. Every hotel has a bed, TV, bathroom and WC. They have everything. What separates one hotel from the other is the intangible part of the hotel, that is the customer service. How well you treat your customers is what determines how you survive in the industry. The other thing is your maintenance culture, your TAT, which is the turnaround time for when a fault is discovered and when it is resolved. When your customer complains about a certain thing and when you resolve the issue. That is what sets everybody apart.
What are the challenges facing the hospitality industry now?
The most current challenge is the Covid-19 issue. The other one is the power problem. It eats deeply into your profitability. When you spend about 10 to 15 million naira in empowering a hotel in a year, funds that could have been used in upgrading the hotel, that is a major challenge. The other one is the case of government agencies duplicating so many policies and coming to get money off businesses because they just assume that hotels are making money and people are always in hotels. When you look at the duplication at the end of the day, we have been made to pay more.
As a major player, what do you think the government can do to make the hospitality industry contribute more to the tourism sector?
First of all, government should look at how they can raise funding for this industry with single digit interest rate. They did it for agriculture; they did it for Nollywood and other sectors. Tourism is a huge earner for the economy. Hotels are making money because people come from abroad to spend their hard earned money in the country. Government should look into that. Number two, security is very important. If security is not in place, hospitality business doesn’t thrive. The government should look into how well they can provide adequate security. Finally, they should help reduce the policy duplications. The duplication comes from the local government charging almost the same thing the state government is charging. Those are the things I think the government can do to encourage the industry and at the end of the day, the government ends up benefitting. We are creating employments. Economies of America, Europe and the rest are being run by the private sector. We’re creating enough employments for the teeming youths and government should encourage us.
What’s your dream for Class Suites going forward?
My dream for Class Suites is to have branches in major cities in Nigeria and in major cities in West Africa and, by the special grace of God, to take it out of Africa. I want the Class brand to outlive me as a person.
What are the things that you’ve put in place for that?
Well, we’re training people and making them understand the culture of the business and culture and vision of the Class brand, making them understand where Class is heading to. We empower people and opening up the secret of the business to them. We draw them close and also give them opportunities that would make them want to stay.
