Tue, 05 Sep 2017 13:01:12 +0000
By Buumba Chimbulu
THE Lusaka Hotel has embarked on total rehabilitation of all its facilities at a total cost of K780, 000 meant to revamp the hotel while preserving its standards as a national heritage.
Managing director, David Thompson, said the rehabilitation works were expected to be fully completed in the next three to four months. He said they have so far spent K300, 000 on the works that had been done at the site.
“After successfully completing the external works (Phase 1) of our ambitious, multi-year, revamp and renovation of one of Lusaka’s key heritage site building, we decided to embark on the second phase of the rehabilitation process,” he said.
Mr. Thompson told the media in Lusaka yesterday that some of the key features of phase 2 of the rehabilitation included upgrading of conference equipment.
He said other key features were launching an in-house loyalty club called “the Lusaka Flamboyant Club” which would give loyal customers special incentives.
Mr. Thompson also emphasised the need to preserve the Zambia history and cuisine in the hospitality industry.
He observed that despite the booming of hotels in Zambia, most of them were still run by foreigners.
As an old hotel we need to preserve the history of this hotel and the history of the city. We have been collecting black and white photos as the history of the city and it is our plan to document that into black and while folio talking about the history of Lusaka,
“We have not yet developed our own standards as hospitality, we have to promote our cuisine proudly to the Western world. There is still a lot to be done in terms of involving our history and culture in the industry, we try to copy a lot of standards. We should not be depending on foreigners to come and run our hotels,” Mr Thompson said.
