At the age of 18, Souadou Niang left his family and moved to the United States. This American discovery opened the way for him to pursue a career in technology
"If you don't know who you are, stand in front of a mirror and ask yourself a question because only you can answer it."
This is one of the sentences he has taken from his mother.
Souadou's mother put this glass test on her daughter to help her examine herself regularly.
Mother as a good role model
With no father at the age of 3 and the twelfth child in a family of 13, Souadou is a twin.
She says she inherited from her mother her taste of "beauty and refinement. And her strength of character:" she was very bright but very loving.
"My mother, who was married, was fourteen years old and my father was twenty years old. They were one of the first blacks to live in a port in a railway crew building. west.
she never read or anything but she knew how to get used to the environment. sHe went to the movies, she was ready to learn. "
But the sudden death of her father at work shatters that beautiful picture.
Souadou's mother is struggling to feed and educate the family, assisted by the children's elders.
she ran a small business that allows her to meet her needs but provides for each of her sons who work part of the family budget: "I remember, my brothers, they worked hard."
After her degree, she sends Souadou to join one of his brothers who live in the United States so that he can continue her studies there.
A fan of court drama, Souadou saw herself as a lawyer.
But staying at Ritz Carlton in his pursuit of student work will change his life.
she rose to the ranks, going from a regular employee to a manager because she saw people of different nationalities moving forward in their profession.
"My vision was I wanted to be in management. Because there were Mexicans, Ghanaians who were in charge (...) I said that as a Senegalese I had my place."
It was at this point that the idea of creating a luxury hotel in Senegal began to come to mind. she says she wanted to give this luxurious experience to Senegalese and Africans in general: "it was in the ten years I was there that I began to have this dream."
After a long telephone conversation with her mother, Souadou wished her a good night. she promises to call her the next day. It's three o'clock in Dakar. This will be the last conversation between her and her mother.
Souadou is informed of her death the next day. She then decides to return with her son to attend the funeral.
We are in 2002. she arrives in Senegal after the funeral and decides to go and reflect on her mother's grave. it was a traumatic event that she did not repeat.
She says she is visited by her mother who always watches her for guidance.
her days of mourning are exhausting, she must go home but she decides to stay.
she gets a job in a mining company. And the good sign of her fate makes her even more confident in her project: "once I had booked many rooms in a hotel and unfortunately the King of Morocco decides to come to Dakar and we evicted all my investors out of the hotel and I had no place to put them. impossible. "
Financial funding
Meetings are held, fruitless. Getting around CFA billion dollars when you do not have a solid guarantee of investing in the hotel industry is not easy.
she faces entrepreneurial barriers
This does not prevent it from starting, however. she paid the rental fee for what would later be a luxury Palms boutique hotel and began working.
Eleven interviews with the bank have been arranged.
At the moment, the director of the institute is in Dakar and is participating in the conference.
When Souadou narrates the details of this meeting, her statement was persuasive. We can easily see that she was using the opportunity correctly: "she tells me when you talk I see ch I see that you are going to succeed in this project."
Loan report installed. Souadou finally gets his funding.
Once this point is reached, there are still other challenges to overcome, especially the quality of service.
Luxury hotels are aimed at needy, international customers, accustomed to the quality of service provided, from reception to accommodation.
In Senegal, tourism is a key sector in the government's growth strategy. According to the National Agency for Statistics and Demography, it generated revenue of 275.7 billion in 2018 and employs tens of thousands of people.
She works at a large hotel in Dakar when she hears about the Souadou project. She manages to get her number and calls her to get care.
Palms at the time was just a construction site
However, they keep in touch.
Until the day she received a call from Souadou who asked her to go and see the progress of the work.
He is the first employee of the hotel, of which he is now the manager.
Despite his experience, Souadou says he paid him a week's stay in a Moroccan palace with other colleagues so that they could gain customer experience in high-end hotels: "We gave them good service and showed them how to receive a customer. they can understand what I want so I can relinquish the responsibility.
Corona crash
The hotel opened its doors in 2017 and attracts Anglo-Saxon customers.
Business is going well, he has managed to pay his employees. Until the corona catastrophe occurs. The hotel is still closed for eleven months.
"It was difficult. It is still difficult because we closed on March 10, 2020, the government wanted us to close but we were already beginning to feel the Covid crisis. Because the miners came from Australia and were passing through Asia to arrive. "
Despite the reopening, a large portion of its customers has not yet returned due to travel restrictions in this context of the epidemic.
She received assistance from Senegal "a loan that was delayed by more than two years to repay three months' first installment salary."
She hopes to benefit from the Force Covid support fund set up by the government: "We have filled out all the forms, we are waiting."
According to a joint UNCTAD and UNWTO report published on June 30, 2021, the collapse of global tourism as a result of the catastrophe could cost the world economy $ 4 trillion in 2020 and 2021.
