| 27/08/14: The Private Sector Foundation
Uganda (PSFU), in its annual award ceremony recognized Serena Hotels Africa
among the Top 50 Uganda brands.
The
selection process comprised of three stages that included an onsite audit of
the business, a consumer opinion survey and voting by text message.
Speaking
at the award ceremony on Friday 22nd August 2014, the Executive Director of PSFU, Mr. Gideon Badagawa
said "the idea behind the recognition of the top brands in the Country is to
reward companies that have made it in the minds and hearts of the consumers
despite several challenges and as part of the national golden jubilee". According
to Mr. Badagawa, a brand is considered a winner if it is committed to the
well-being of the Ugandan people through provision of employment, innovation to
expand economic and social well-being, contribution to the country's tax
revenue and generally through corporate citizenship.
Anthony
Chege, Country Manager, TPS (Uganda) Limited said that "recognition for
excellence is indeed an honor in itself, and the sustainable integrated ethical
approach to development of the Serena brand for over four decades with a
current portfolio of twenty four properties in six African Countries is
gratifying".
The
expansion of the Serena Portfolio into Uganda began with the opening of Kampala
Serena Hotel (Member of The Leading
Hotels of the World) in Year 2004, and in line with its medium to long term
objective to create a leisure circuit in Uganda similar to our well established
Kenyan and Tanzanian operations, Serena Hotels took over the Lake Victoria
Serena Resort & Spa, Entebbe in year 2009. Collectively, the total room
inventory is 276 and the properties directly employs 723 staff of which less
than 2% are not East Africans.
In the year 2013, TPS (Uganda) Limited paid direct and
indirect taxes amounting to UShs. 12.8 Billion (Approximately US$ 5 Million).
The
Company continues to work on supporting the growing Tourism industry in Eastern Africa by seeking investment opportunities and
validates its belief that with the changing nature of guest expectations, it
is the quality of service and product that will continue to determine the
destination choices which clients make.
Beginning April 2013, TPS
(Uganda) Limited entered into a contract with Lobster Ink, a South
African based Company specializing in training staff on service delivery in the
hospitality industry benchmarked to Leading Quality Assurance (LQA) Standards.
The program at Kampala
Serena Hotel
is co-financed with DEG (the investment arm of the Federal Republic of Germany - Technical Assistance Program). To date, 93 students from selected hospitality
colleges/learning institutions have been given the opportunity to attend the
hospitality skills training courses conducted at Serena Hotels,
resulting in improving the quality and skills of students for the Ugandan
Tourism Industry.
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