The African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa this month celebrated its first birthday with a gala event attended by several hundred travel industry players, top business people and celebrities. It has been a watershed debut for the superior deluxe hotel in Century City, Cape Town, which has performed even better than expected and has fast become the favoured executive stay and premium conferencing hotel in the city.

Hotel general manager Gary Koetser said it had been a challenging year heading up the management team of a new hotel. “Among the challenges were executing a flawless Protea Hospitality Group General Managers’ Annual Conference just two days after we opened our doors in December last year, and the unprecedented demand for high-quality conference venues that has necessitated opening our fourth large meeting centre,” Koetser said. The hotel’s conference centre now comprises four spacious conferencing venues and nine stylish boardrooms with state-of-the-art equipment

“One of the biggest highlights has been the opportunity to play host to so many fellow travel professionals with the Association of South African Travel Agents Annual Conference held here. We were also extremely honoured to have been chosen as hosts for the 2010 Travel Corporation global conference which is only held once a decade and brings together travel professionals from myriad nations,” Koetser said.

The hotel was also the venue for the exclusive South African launch of the Porsche 911, as well as the Citroen C5’s national debut, and corporate giants such as MTN also moved in during the year to hold a number of large-scale events such as the MTN Annual Retailers Conference.

Koetser said other highlights were being chosen as the venue to host “possibly the most coveted high tea event”, the O Tea Party. Tickets were sold out within the first hour of opening making this event a much anticipated one. More than 200 GUESTS, dressed to the nines, enjoyed scrumptious snacks while being serenaded by South African favourite, Loyiso Bala.

Bala isn’t the only big name that’s graced the venue. The African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa has been great for celeb-spotting the whole year. The hotel has had everyone from national sporting heroes to feted actors and singers through the doors, including Victor Matfield, Bryan Habana, Mkhaya Ntini, Lucas Radebe, Ryk Neethling, Zuraida Jardine, Lindiwe Suttle, PJ Powers and Sharlto Copley.

“The hotel enjoying such success has allowed us to give back to the community and this is arguably the highlight that fills me with most pride. In 2010 we have been involved with Reach for a Dream, raising R14 000 for burn victims, the Kfm Christmas Wish List, Nazareth House’s orphans’ party and Du Noon Primary School’s stationery drive. In the first nine months of the year the hotel’s charitable work totaled more than R320 000,” Koetser said.

He said the biggest challenge of the year ahead was to exceed the exceptionally high standard of the service offering and to devise creative measures to ensure that repeat conferences and GUESTS in general had an even better experience than previously. “We have a number of ideas to roll out from January onwards. Watch this space,” Koetser said.

Protea Hospitality Group Director of Sales, Marketing and Revenue, Danny Bryer, congratulated the hotel on an exceptional first year. “African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa is a prime example of how a great location, exceptional designers and a top rate management and service team can come together to create a hotel and conference centre that exceeds all expectations for a debut year. This hotel is a textbook case of how it should be done; a fantastic product and sound management led by a company that has 25 years’ experience in the South African hospitality trade. It doesn’t get better than that,” Bryer said.

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