By Nick Wilson

Southern Sun Hotels said yesterday it had secured a 15-year management contract for two new hotels in Rwanda .

The group said this reinforced its presence on the African continent. It already has a presence in SA, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and the Seychelles.

Southern Sun had also secured a development contract providing development advisory services for the hotels.

In terms of the agreement, effective from this July, both hotels, which are owned by the Rwandan government and situated at the sites of two old hotels abandoned in 1994, need to be completed by December.

Ron Stringfellow, CEO of Tsogo Sun Group and executive chairman of Southern Sun Hotels, said the hotel chain was approached by Rwanda in June to assist with the finalisation of the development phase of the hotels.

Southern Sun also committed itself to ensuring that the hotels were open in time to host the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) conference in December this year. "Our entry into east Africa not only supports the company's objective to increase is presence in Africa, but is in line with the objectives of Nepad," Stringfellow said.

The first hotel to open, on November 30, will be the Intercontinental Kigali in the Rwandan capital city of Kigali. Southern Sun retains the exclusive right in certain parts of subSaharan Africa to operate hotels under the Intercontinental brand.

The second hotel, the Kivu Sun, will be a Southern Sun-branded hotel and will open in mid-December. It is situated at Gisenyi on the banks of Lake Kivu.

Southern Sun MD Helder Pereira said that Rwanda recently held its first democratic elections without incident and that the country appeared to be peaceful.

"We believe that we will operate at good occupancy levels. There are no other hotels like them in the country ," Pereira said.

Southern Sun was also looking into other African opportunities and saw itself expanding into west Africa.

Pereira said the company was busy talking to a few interested parties, but could not elaborate any further .

The group also confirmed that it was looking for opportunities in the Middle East.

Business Day