The hotel is located three minutes away from Bole International Airport
Addis Abeba gets an additional local brand hotel, Sherar Addis, that was constructed for a total of 80 million Br. The hotel is located off Africa Avenue.
Under construction for the past four years, the hotel was inaugurated and opened its door for business last Thursday, May 17, 2018. Sherar, literally translated as Family in the Gurage language, has six storeys with 30 standard rooms.
It is located just behind Friendship Supermarket, next to Jupiter International Hotel’s Bole Branch, and only minutes away from Bole International Airport. The hotel rests on a 500sqm plot of land and has different facilities including a bar, lounge, restaurant and cafe.
The construction took four years due to delays in procurement of construction materials, according to Amha G.Tsadik, managing director of the Hotel, which hired a total of 60 employees. Amha has been previously engaged in the import and export business.
The forex crunch to import construction materials and furniture, as well as problems with recruiting calibre human resources, were also major challenges mentioned by the management of the company for the delay of the construction and commencement of operations.
“Because my family is involved in the hotel business, I was attracted to join the industry,” he told Fortune. His family owns Africa Hotel, located in the heart of Piassa.
Worku Mengesha, communications officer at the Addis Abeba Culture & Tourism Bureau believes the hotel could be a good addition to the hospitality and tourism industry of the city. He characterises hotels in Addis Abeba without star ratings to be of lower quality.
“We are giving training for these hotels as the city hosts a great number of tourists and international conferences,” he told Fortune.
Addis Abeba has 164 star-rated hotels that have a total of 8,000 rooms to 10,000 beds as of August last year. The city also has 1,129 non-star level hotels. During the first half of the current fiscal year, the city bagged over one billion dollars from tourists arriving in the city.
Along with these local brand hotels, the city is witnessing an increase in internationally franchised brand hotels. Addis Abeba expects to have 30 such establishments within half a decade. Currently, the capital is the seat of the African Union, more than 100 diplomatic missions and six international brand hotels including Marriott Executive Apartments, Radisson Blu, Sheraton Addis, Hilton Addis, Ramada Addis and Golden Tulip Addis hotel.
For Fisseha Asres, managing director at Afro Hospitality Management, the entrance of the hotel will play a significant role in bringing competition among the local brand hotels.
“To thrive in the business, the local hotels need to work on their promotion, quality of service and good management,” he told Fortune.
A week before the opening of Sherar Addis, another local brand, Sheger Royal, opened its door for business. The six-storey Sheger Royal was constructed for a quarter of a billion Birr and has 40 rooms, a gymnasium, two bars, a restaurant and two meeting halls.
(Tariku Gashu, Fortune Staff Writer has contributed to this story)