It's not April Fool daily. However, the story told below could one day - and not so long ago - a reality. In the meantime stay and happy reading!
After more than a year behind schedule, Lome Royal Plaza will open its doors on Wednesday. A soft opening of a month is expected.
With 995 rooms, 9 restaurants, a spa, 3 pools, 2 casinos, 4 discotheques including a karaoke bar, a shopping arcade, a private beach, a golf course with 18 holes, tennis and kitesurg spot, the complex is one of the most important sub-Saharan Africa.
Built on the seafront on the site of the old Tropicana hotel (10 minutes from downtown), the resort wants to attract a clientele of tourists and businessmen.
Spacious and luxurious, 5-star service, high-African and international gastronomy, Togolese staff (trained at the Confucius Institute in Lomé) and Singapore recently recruited will be enough for ultra-demanding clientele.
Funded by the Hong Kong group 'Asian Leisure', the Royal Plaza Lomé cost a whopping $ 275 million. A significant investment but measured, said Lu-Pan Zhong, president of the company came to Lomé inaugurate her last baby.
Asian Leisure has many institutions in Japan, Korea, China and Indonesia, but this is the first opened in Africa.
How to achieve load factors satisfactory with nearly 1,000 rooms and therefore profitable overall? Many analysts and industry experts remain skeptical and question the project's success.
Remarks that make us smile Zhong. "Our business model is proven. We would not have invested $ 275 million just for fun ', explains the fifties, a graduate of the London School of Economics, from a family who made a fortune in the gambling industry in Macau.
And the business model is actually concrete.
The group has an airline, 'Fly Asian Leisure' which operates a fleet of 20 Boeing 777 from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen. The goal is to sell packages to Chinese tourists including air and living in Togo week.
3 weekly flights are scheduled from June 2015, something easily fill the hotel. That's 52,000 Chinese tourists are expected to stay at the Royal Plaza Lomé every year.
Ingenious, still had to think about it.
Faced with the influx of Chinese visitors expected, the rating of the new Lome Airport has been changed in a hurry. Mandarin now alongside the French and English. A symbol.
Luxurious rooms
Ground staff was trained accordingly says Gnama Latta, director of the National Civil Aviation Agency who started himself to learning the language ... with difficulty.
In the capital, merchants welcome the opening of a new hotel and adapt somehow to this future customers.
Side restaurants, it also anticipates. The Belle Epoque, proposing for years French specialties, shook his card, hired a chef from Chongqing and redone the decor in the style of an opium den. A choice assumed by the head Yohan Vignaud which states that opium is not on the menu.
As for the Beluga, the Mecca of chic dinners, half the room is now dedicated to Weiqi, one of the oldest Chinese strategy games.
Finally, Alt München, famous German brewery located near the port, has débaptisée to be called 'The French Concession'. Sauerkraut and other roestis gave way to duck at Mapo ToFu at Bo bun beef or lamb hochepot.
'What do you want, Germany left Togo in 1918, there was no choice but to adapt, "commented dumbfounded boss, Marc Mulfarth.
The authorities are not left behind. The Great Mosque and the Cathedral will be transformed once a week in Taoist and Buddhist temple. 'This is the minium that we can do and it symbolizes the tradition of hosting Togolese' says Admiral against Fogan Adégnon, chairman of the special delegation of the city of Lomé (the equivalent of mayor).
Lu-Pan Zhong welcomes the enthusiasm shown by the Togolese. 'We had originally intended to implement the resort Ghana and Niger, but it is ultimately the Togo who was chosen precisely because of its hospitality.'
The lobby
This is all very well but soon it will no longer be with us, a plague Zémidjan (motorbike taxi) met in front of the hotel. 'At this rate in 10 years the Ewe, Mina or Kabyé have given way to Mandarin as the official language'.
It reassures the teaching of Mandarin will be mandatory from college next September, said Yao Florent Badjam Maganawe, the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education.
The inauguration of the Royal Beach Plaza Lomé illustrates once again the offensive Asian groups - not just China - on the African continent.
The first flight is scheduled on May 6 from Shanghai.
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