Kwarush Guest House cries out for government bookings

On Tuesday I listened to Radio 2000, where Dr Thulani ‘Rush’ Mkhize, the owner of Kwarush Guest House, was being interviewed about his tourism business located in the township of Umlazi just outside Durban CBD. Mr Mkhize claims to have invested about R12 million on the venture, yet it’s still not graded (Match Hospitality expected to handle the grading process) and bookings for soccer world cup, are yet to be confirmed.

As a result he has resolved to reduce his rates in order to attract guests. He went on to lament at great length that government is always preaching about black economic empowerment, yet his facility is not being used by government officials, but instead they book tourism products based in Durban city centre which are not black owned.

MY INVESTIGATIONS
After this heated (since Rush was pouring his heart out) interview, I then investigated further about Kwarush Guest House, to get a better understanding of the business. I must indicate that during the interview, Mr Mkhize failed to inform listeners how many rooms are offered and if he has invested in marketing his guest house.

WEBSITE – www.kwarush.co.za
Website dismally fails to showcase the guest house, too much focus has been invested on profiling Dr Thulani ‘Rush’ Mkhize, the owner and not the property.

Solution – add a detailed page about the guest house, what facilities are offered and how many guest rooms, can accommodate how many people. Add more photographs showcasing the property in all angles from outside view to the inside of the guest rooms.

MARKETING
No marketing is currently employed into selling guest house. Reducing rates forever is not solving the problem in this case, as this will mean operation cannot break-even anytime soon.

Solution – Seeing that so much money has been invested on creating such a facility, it’s only a given that an experienced marketing team in-house or outsourced is employed to ensure this guest house is aggressively marketed. Such a team will employ various methods of keeping the occupy rate at acceptable levels.

GRADING
Guest house is currently not graded, this limits its status.

Solution – Property must be graded now without having to wait for Match Hospitality to come on board before it is graded. Again, considering that so much money has been invested on the property, grading shouldn’t be a stumbling block for progress.

GOVERNMENT
Dr Mkhize has now invested too much hope and focus on government to use his facility.

Solution – move away from the handout mentality of expecting government to be your only client, aggressively market property to both local and international travellers. Let government be a bonus if they happen to book facility and not be entirely dependent on them.

BOOKING ENGINES
This property has not invested on using booking engines to sell their facility.

Solution – list on both local and international booking engines in order to spread chances of securing bookings as far and wide as possible. You can read the benefits and available options on posts titled: Why list your B&B/hotel with booking engines? and My top 10 pointers for Soweto B&B operators

TOUR OPERATORS
Tour operators are not aware of such a facility.

Solution – contact as many tour operators as possible and get them to add your facility on their packages that they sell.

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