We met Kevin Murray and Carolyn Caesar-Murray at The Women Expo, a Sonia Noel Foundation for Creative Arts (SNFCA) event staged in collaboration with the Women’s Association for Sustained Development. The organisers say that its focus is to create spaces that allow for women investing in small business to help promote their enterprises. Staged on Saturday and Sunday last at the Pegasus Hotel, the event is currently in its fourth year.
Harmony Inn, the brand given to their two separate accommodation facilities at Parfaite Harmonie and Festival City and Secret Villa Apartments in the Stevedore Housing Scheme, comprise one of those many examples of emerging enterprises that give the lie to rumours circulating in some quarters that there is a dearth of ongoing private sector investment in Guyana. Their investment, they say, is emerging rather than thriving and their focus, they say, is on arriving at a juncture where the investment will secure an increased level of patronage in what has become a highly competitive accommodation sector.
The first facility was established in 2012 at Parfaite Harmonie, seemingly an unlikely location for such a facility but one which, they say, had been carefully researched. If the immediate-term patronage is not what they had hoped it might be, the couple are banking on the fact that Parfaite Harmonie is a growing community and that, ‘down the road,’ business could ‘pick up.’
Financed through a bank loan, the Parfaite Harmonie facility is a modest split level building comprising seven fully-furnished apartments with accompanying kitchenettes.
But the Caesars were far from finished. In 2014 they secured a further commercial bank loan to erect another modest complex at 1880 Kellman Drive in Festival City. That complex is also fitted with seven apartments. There is, as well, a third apartment complex situated at 3540 Stevedore Housing Scheme, in South Georgetown.
All of this is not exactly new to Carolyn. She had secured her earliest insights into the accommodation industry from her father, Charles Caesar, who had established the three-room Secret Villa Apartments in Albouystown and set aside two rooms for accommodation-challenged University of Guyana students. Herself a UG Business Management graduate, she assumed control of the management of the facility upon her father’s death in 2016. Four years earlier, in 2012, Carolyn, still a university student and a salaried employee and Kevin had taken a decision to start a business of their own.
Kevin, meanwhile, had taken a more circuitous route to business. Originally from Leguan, he had served as a policeman and afterwards worked as a barber in Barbados before returning home to work as a taxi driver for a short while.
These days, the couple are now completely immersed in the hustle and bustle of the competition associated with the urban accommodation industry. Focussed on “standards” they rely heavily on referrals and on seasonal patronage associated with a higher-than-usual demand for short-term accommodation.
Even as she reflects on the challenges associated with the transition that she has had to make from employee to proprietor, she says that she has come to a fuller appreciation of the energy which her father was required to put into managing his own business, ensuring high standards of service and simultaneously attending to the welfare of both his employees and his customers.
In a sector that is decidedly seasonal and which can throw up protracted periods of little or no patronage the risks are high. Zero per cent occupancy still has its costs, the most obvious ones being workers’ wages and costs associated with keeping standards up for the next wave of guests. Occupancy rates can range from 0% to between 50% and 60% and it is for those good days that the Murrays must constantly prepare.
With both the government and private sector talking up tourism, the Murrays hope to capture a share of the visitor market that includes Guyanese returning home on holiday or intrepid adventurers looking for short-term accommodation in Georgetown before taking off on some trek through Guyana’s vast outdoors.
In circumstances where marketing costs are prohibitive, they have developed strategies of their own for marketing their product. They set aside periods during which to visit busy commercial areas where they set up modest booths and engage passers-by. The Sea Wall is one such place. There, they engage a wide cross-section of Guyanese whom they say, are always full of ideas as to how they can enhance their approach to marketing.
Last weekend’s Women’s Expo is also the kind of event where the Murrays can reach out to responsive audiences though they point out that costs associated with participating in such events can be a constraining factor.
The Murrays believe that they are operating in a sub-sector in which they can be competitive. Their focus is on modest but clean and comfortable facilities. While there is no kitchen service, modest catering demands can be met through outsourcing to a safe and reliable provider. The amenities that come with their ‘fully self-contained rooms’ include refrigerator, microwave, television, hot and cold baths, kitchenettes and Wi-Fi service. Accommodation rates range from $6,000 to $9,000 per night and restaurants, supermarkets and taxi services are close by. The Murrays advertise on Facebook and their business phones are 225-6337 and 668-0306.
The couple are currently preoccupied with responding to the transformation that is taking place in the sector. One of their major disappointments has been their failure so far, to break into what has come to be seen as a lucrative market created by Cuban shoppers. However, they insist that they are in it for the long haul.
