Southern Sun Hotels

Inside Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel

Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel is throwing a party tomorrow, 3 June. Dubbed VIP Cocktail, guests have been promised an unforgettable date by the authorities of hotel, who recently showed select tourism reporters/writers around their complex.

The visit, dubbed Educational Tour, took Travels and some 10 others through the hotel and its facilities. Although, Travels was out of the country; when Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel formally opened in Lagos in 2009; we had visited Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel on our pocket in February, 2010. Prompted by curiosity, this travel-writer had to look in, to keep abreast of developments in the local tourism industry.

For some idea of the quality of any hotel’s serving, you must buy and taste their cuisine. After all, ‘the taste of the pudding is in the eating’. We had decidedly avoided anything elaborate and settled for sandwich, which was washed down with a bottle of Coke and a 75cl bottle of Eva water. The sandwich cost over N2,200, coke N600; and, the total bill came to over N3,200. Hmm…

Moreover, with their cheapest room at over N68,000 and the upper limit in excess of N200,000, per night; Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel is not the kind of place the not-so-rich want to visit frequently, to be candid. But, it’s an ideal place to take one’s partner for a treat. In deed, the Hotel General Manager, Mark Loxley, recalled that a couple had attended the hotel’s flag-off in 2009 because the premises was where they spent their honeymoon decades ago.

You bet! Our visit to Southern Sun, Ikoyi in February last year was also spurred by sentimental reasons; for, the building housed Ikoyi Hotel, which for decades, served as a Lagos landmark. Come to think of it, Ikoyi Hotel; which was founded in 1926, had practically morphed into a heritage site of some sort. We had, however, lamented; in a story published in 1996, in Sunday Times, where we once served as Art, Culture and Entertainment Editor, that Ikoyi Hotel had nothing to celebrate for its 70th anniversary.

Within the next 10 years, Ikoyi Hotel and its parent company; Nigeria Hotels Limited had staggered from misfortune to viccissitudes until the cookie finally crumbled, as they say. Although Nigeria Hotels Limited is no more, Ikoyi Hotel has ressurrected, though with a prefix, Southern Sun. Like the Phoenix, the complex had withered only to re-emerge stonger. Welcome to Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel.

Southern Sun Hotel Dar Es Salaam | Tanzania Hotels

Situated within walking distance of the central business district, featuring modern technology, world class service and facilities, the Southern Sun Dar es Salaam is an ideal base for business visitors to this East African city.

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