Transcorp profit hits N22 billion

Despite harsh operational environment that limited movements worldwide, Transcorp hotel recorded N22 billion gross revenue last year.

The Chairman, Board of Directors, Transcorp hotels, Emmanuel Nnorom, who disclosed this in Abuja at the company’s yearly general meeting, explained that the Transcorp knack for adherence to a disciplined approach to financial management has continued to yield results as reflected in reduced finance cost during the year.

Nnorom, who paid glowing tributes to the Bank of Industry (BoI) for aiding the hotel with N20 billion lifeline during the pandemic, said the firm promptly met its series 1 bond obligations and has successfully re-purchased 65 per cent of the outstanding bond balance, adding that the bond will be fully redeemed in October 2022.

With the pandemic still wreaking havoc on global movements amid the high cost of flights, Nnorom declared that enjoying holidays in-country with families is staging a comeback with Transcorp placing a high premium on staycations.

“If people planned to travel the world in 2020, the pandemic made it impossible. Travel restrictions have followed ever since thereby making globe-trotting out of reach for even the wealthiest.

In many cases, staycation has now become commonplace. People have been forced to find gems hidden in plain sight for a long, as they sought places to spend holidays with family, friends, and loved ones.

The reopening of international travel has not done much to dissuade staycation makers; airline price hikes, COVID testing requirements, as well as the complicated bureaucracy involved in travelling abroad make staying at home very desirable. Vacationers have had a time of reflection to find even more reasons to spend the holiday in-country. From environmental to budgeting reasons, home is finally becoming sweet again, with 2021 seeing an uptick in more holidays spent locally.”

Looking forwards to what 2022 holds, the Transcorp board chair noted that the hotel would drive key investments in innovation, including hospitality tech to improve its competitive advantage in the industry with a special focus on the optimization of the Aura by Transcorp Hotel platform and investment in smart hospitality to improve guest experience.

He added: “As part of our key strategy is to continue to deepen our share and expand our market while continually providing the highest service standards, we will prioritize the completion of the Transcorp Events Centre in Abuja, which will be purpose-built and will feature refined and functional amenities that will become a suitable venue to host medium to large scale events such as trade fairs, concerts and weddings.”

The board chairman also lamented the spending of about N1.5 billion on power within the year.

On her part, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Transcorp hotel, Dupe Olusola, said the hotel recorded a 142 per cent year-on-year growth in gross profit in 2021 as compared to 2020, to close at N16.2 billion adding that a gross profit margin of 75 per cent was achieved in 2021 representing an improvement of 900 basis points from 2020.

She added: “Despite the rise in inflation rate and Naira devaluation, and the resultant high energy and rising raw material cost, we continued to drive our cost management imperatives, chief of which was our focus on import substitution in response to the volatile forex regime.”