| Sunbird PLC |  |  |  |
Sunbird Tourism plc (Sunbird) is a publicly quoted enterprise, listed on the Malawi Stock Exchange in August 2002. As of December 2018, the Government of Malawi is the largest shareholder at 71%. Members of the public own 14%. Mr Noel Hayes who used to own 15% disposed of the same to Press Corporation plc during the year 2018. Sunbird was incorporated in 1988 as a private company following the amalgamation and consolidation of hotels previously owned by the Government of Malawi under different investment vehicles. Previously, and until 2000, the Company was known as the Tourism Development and Investment Company of Malawi when the name was strategically changed to Sunbird Tourism Limited. Following the requirements of the new Companies Act of 2013, the name was amended to Sunbird Tourism plc. Sunbird is a leading operator in the hospitality industry in Malawi and has, as its main activity, the operation of nine hotel properties in Malawi. The properties include four city hotels: Sunbird Capital, Sunbird Mount Soche, Sunbird Lilongwe, and Sunbird Mzuzu; and two popular beach resorts along Lake Malawi: Sunbird Nkopola and Sunbird Livingstonia; two nature resorts: Sunbird Ku Chawe an iconic mountain resort and Sunbird Thawale, a bush resort in a popular “Big Five” wild life reserve. In 2018, Sunbird signed a Management Contract for Kara O’Mula Country Lodge located at the foot of the unique Mulanje Mountain. Catering Solutions Limited, a 100% owned subsidiary, is involved in the provision of airline and institutional catering services. Sunbird employs a motivated and highly skilled team of over 1,000 SALES AND MARKETING Sunbird has remained resilient and maintains its solid position as a market leader in the hospitality Industry. Sunbird’s current property mix is split amongst four city hotels and five leisure resorts, ensuring a desired and solid business mix for growth, and further enhancing the customer experience within Sunbird properties.
Sunbird brand remained resilient in a highly competitive market, and strived to maintain its market leadership, by leveraging its diverse product with an enhanced customer experience in order to increase repeat business. An aggressive sales approach for key, dormant, new and existing accounts was pursued together with marketing activities for increased brand awareness and brand reach. In an effort to retain and grow our market dominance, sales and marketing activities were enhanced, revolving around the four growth pillars of market penetration, product development, market development and product diversification.
Sunbird remains a customer focused brand, our focus being to create unrivalled customer experiences, translating into value-for-money. Our Customer relationship management strategy focuses on constant engagement with customers and prospective customers through feedback, and creating brand loyalty through our rewarding programmes. Sunbird continues to leverage its loyalty programme; Sunbird Premier, in an effort to retain customers and induce repeat business. OPERATIONS Sunbird continued offering customer responsive service despite challenges in the operating environment. Intermittent power supply was one key challenge during the trading period.
The Group focused on improvement of customer experience for guests. Quality Assurance - Healthy and Safety remains a key priority in operations. Sunbird engaged a hazard analysis and critical control procedures (HACCP) certified trainer from SGS - South Africa to train senior food and beverage management. This was an important step in setting up a HACCP environment which is necessary for a healthy and safe environment in food production and service. All hotels were trained and implementation is ongoing. Continued property inspection properties was one way of ensuring that units adhere to Sunbird brand standards.
Healthy and Safety remains a key priority in operations. Sunbird engaged a hazard analysis and critical control procedures (HACCP) certified trainer from SGS - South Africa to train senior food and beverage management. This was an important step in setting up a HACCP environment which is necessary for a healthy and safe environment in food production and service. All hotels were trained and implementation is ongoing. Continued property inspection properties was one way of ensuring that units adhere to Sunbird brand standards. TECHNOLOGY The use of information technology (IT) in the hospitality industry keeps on growing and improving over the years. Sunbird realises that technology enhances the overall experience and quality of service we provide to our guests. It also allows us to execute transactions more quickly and seamlessly and to communicate faster and more efficiently with our guests. This also enables us to provide better market analytics, data and other information. IT has changed the procedures and structure for functions such as marketing, booking and reservations, food and beverage management, and accounting systems in the industry. Sunbird would like to be at the forefront in implementing technologically aided solutions for the most important tasks to enhance the guest experience. In 2018, we embarked on several systems integration and processes automation projects. During the year, we installed a new Central reservations system to improve management of online rates, occupancy information and accuracy in consolidation of group production data. A Sales and Catering module was installed to improve handling of Food & Beverages (F&B) processes right from reservations, tracking and billing. The data from the F&B is now fully integrated with the hotel system improving processing efficiency and accuracy by eliminating double entry of the same information in two systems. We upgraded the WiFi setup in the City hotels and introduced guest credentials authentication to eliminate the manual voucher generation and improve on bandwidth management by the resident guests. We supply and or erect all kinds of fencing jobs including the normal diamond mesh, welded mesh , razor mesh, razor wire, and palisade. Notable of the razor mesh fencing, is the 2km one we did at Mzuzu Airport and palisade fencing at Mwaiwathu Private Hospital in Blantyre. In this department we fabricate to customer specifications - all sorts of products, namely gates, cagings and grilles . |
