Published: 07 July 2014

RAINBOW Tourism Group (RTG) says it has set aside at least $400 000 to refurbish the Bulawayo Rainbow Hotel.

The refurbishment follows similar exercises at Rainbow Towers and the Kadoma Hotel and Conference Centre.

In a statement, RTG spokesperson Eltah Sanangura said the refurbishment of Bulawayo Rainbow Hotel which started in January this year had already led to the tiling of 39 first floor rooms and carpeting of 141 rooms from the second to the fifth floors of the hotel.

"The hotel now offers clients an option of carpeted or tiled rooms in line with international trends. Loziba restaurant and Sethule bar also refurbished the dining areas and they now have a modern classic look.

"The hotel has revamped the M1 area to include a coffee shop. The hotel recently replaced its television sets with flat screen televisions. The front entrance which also is the main entrance, for the hotel, has been revamped, the walls have been repainted and the reception areas tiled," Sanangura said.

She said plans to replace linen including duvets were underway while the mini bars for the rooms and air-conditioning systems would also be replaced.

"The hotel has since been repositioned to a business and conference hotel and as such its conference facilities are expected to be refurbished during the course of 2014. One of the conference rooms will be turned into a gym," she said.

She said Bulawayo Rainbow's exterior would undergo a similar facelift in the fourth quarter of this year and the facelift would extend to the hotel lobby whose main entrance table would be converted into a fountain. She added that apart from the product improvement initiatives, they were also investing in human resource capital through continuous service improvement and training programmes that would see service delivery improve significantly.

Bulawayo Rainbow Hotel has 180 en-suite rooms which include executive suites and a presidential suite.

Since the advent of the multicurrency system in 2009, several hotels have been refurbished while government has also assisted operators by waiving duty on imported equipment.

Meanwhile, RTG revenue grew by 7% to $8,7 million in the first quarter ended April 2014 from $8,6 million on the same period last year buoyed by a strong performance of resort hotels and the conference centre.

In the period under review the number of rooms sold was 16% up over the same period last year and this resulted in an occupancy growth of 16% from 38% in the first quarter of 2013 to 44% in the first quarter of 2014.

International arrivals grew by 13% over the same period while during the quarter revenue contribution from the South African office grew by 51% from the prior year.

Foreign business during the period under review grew 9% while domestic revenues were up 7%.

- newsday