The Chief Executive Officer of Transcorp Hotels Plc, Dupe Olusola, has predicted that it might take up to 2024 for the hospitality business in Nigeria and around the world to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Olusola, who disclosed this at a virtual briefing on Thursday, said while the pandemic has affected every sector of the economy, one of the hardest hit is the hospitality industry.
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“It is expected that recovery levels globally will be at 2024 and it is not surprising because government policies which involve the health practice of wearing masks as well as practising social distancing will come up.
“There has been a slight increase in economic activities, however, we are struggling to operate as we used to,” she said.
By June 2020, she said the firm’s room revenue dropped to N3.03 billion compared to the N5.88bn reached in the 2019 period.
She said losses have been around over N1bn monthly.
“Hence, we will be in a loss position at the end of 2020 as we are deeply challenged and we can only hope a vaccine will be found to drive out the pandemic.”
Olusola however disclosed that the company would consider raising N10bn in form of rights issue to strengthen its balance sheet.
“One of the key things we did was to engage with our lenders to see how we can get loan reductions in our interest loans and we got positive responses from some of them.
“We are a strong organisation and we are optimistic and we are working on a day-to-day basis to bring innovative solutions to our customers.”
