TheCable

SlimTrader, a turnkey e-commerce solution provider for businesses, held its inaugural empowerment forum for owners and managers of hotels and hospitality businesses at the Federal Palace Hotel, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Wednesday.

The event, themed ‘Positioning your hotel for greater sales’, was the first of its kind in the country, featuring talks and workshops led by experts in the hospitality, business and finance sectors.

At the summit, Akeem Lawal, divisional CEO, switching and processing, Interswitch Limited; Bruce Prins, founder of Amplitude Solutions and a hospitality operations and training consultant; Martin Pagel, a holder of multiple technology patents and leading hotel technology development expert; Kunle Oguneye, country manager, Mall for Africa and erstwhile director for marketplace at Konga.com, made presentations.

Also in attendance to share from their wealth of experience in running successful hotels in Nigeria were Tola Akerele, co-founder of Bogobiri House in Ikoyi; and Anthony Shisler, managing director, Fahrenheit Hospitality Limited (FHL).

According to Femi Akinde, founder/CEO of SlimTraders, the summit is envisioned to become Nigeria’s biggest platform for hotel managers and owners to learn important strategies to make their businesses even more profitable in these dire economic times.

“The forum will continue to feature insightful lineup of presentations and panel discussions ranging from what it takes for hotels in Nigeria to create visibility to specific target groups to new ways for the Nigerian hospitality sector to extend its reach to a bigger local and international audience,” he said.

“The vision of SlimTrader is to facilitate effortless transactions for businesses across Sub-Sahara Africa. In working with hotels, we discovered that they face significant challenges in securing reservations to offline payments.

“We found out that there are lots of hotels that find it difficult to run its operation in terms of technology. They hire consultants to research all the available solutions and to propose one.

“SlimTrader gladly took on this challenge and we are pleased that today we can launch this much-needed solution for the hotel industry in Nigeria, tying multiple payment terminals to their physical and online reservations.”

L-R: Daniel Sacerdoti, director, distribution accounts for Expedia; Hakeem Lawal, divisional CEO S&P, Interswitch; and Femi Akinde, founder/CEO of SlimTrader

Panelists shared strategies for revenue generation and cost effectiveness for hotel operations, while leading financial experts discussed payments automation, reconciliation and management for the hospitality sector.

In his own remark, Lawal said Interswitch Limitedis always seeking new ways to help improve business efficiency with its funds monitoring, payments collection and fraud management solutions.

“This partnership with SlimTrader is one of the ways we are bringing our company vision to life,” he said.

Magaji Buba, general manager of SlimTrader, said the series of presentations shared with the hoteliers were designed to take their business to next level.

“SlimTrader is a technology enabler for African businesses in the travel and hospitality sectors,” he said. “We see this inaugural conference as an opportunity to bring all the key players together for the benefit of the industry as a whole.”

SlimTrader is a Nigerian company with a track record of providing a leading innovative technology platform that has helped to boost revenue for businesses across various industries.