Sheraton Kampala Hotel in partnership with Enterprise Uganda and supported by the Youth Business International signed Memorandum of understanding (M.O.U). This initiative is aimed at providing young entrepreneurs with various skills in the hospitality industry through hands-on training and exposure.

The training will take place over a period of 12 months and Sheraton Kampala Hotel will train twenty young entrepreneurs that will be selected from a pool of applicants. The training will be in all departments of the hotel and the interns will be guided and trained by our very experienced line personnel.

“At Sheraton Kampala we strongly believe in youth development initiatives as a means of maximizing the potential of the underprivileged and at risk youth and one of the ways is through our extensive hands-on training program that we operate and use to train aspiring hoteliers. Some of the outstanding trainees join us on a full time basis. We are very grateful for this partnership with Enterprise Uganda and we believe the youth that will be selected will benefit a lot from this training.” Said Sheraton’s General manager Mr. Jean Philippe Bittencourt.

Sheraton Kampala Hotel which is managed by Constellation Hospitality,( a Dubai based Hotel Management Company)is confident that the success of this partnership in Uganda will be the perfect catalyst to roll out similar programs across the other sister properties. The initiative is also in line with Constellation’s strategic goals to improve the skills and develop the careers of its associates.

With the high levels of unemployment in Uganda, Sheraton and Enterprise Uganda have offered this training opportunity to equip the youth with the skills and knowledge to be able to start up their own businesses. The hospitality industry is extremely competitive and this training will go a long way in ensuring the youth entrepreneurs stand out from their counterparts.

“We are very grateful to Sheraton opening its doors for the Youth to train at the Sheraton Kampala because this is an great opportunity for them to maximize and improve their operational knowledge and business acumen. We trust the expertise at Sheraton and we are confident that these skills will be passed on to the trainees to be better hoteliers and entrepreneurs. The training will be a 360 degree course where they will receive knowledge from some of the best people in the hospitality industry as well as advise and mentorship from the experts at Enterprise Uganda. The main essence of this training is to offer youth skills that can be used to start up their own business or apply the skills in their careers” Explained Mr. Charles Ocici, Executive Director of Enterprise.

Unilever under its Blueband flagship brand, is set to reward top schools, pupils and teachers at a grand finale event slated for 1st April at the Sheraton Hotel, Kampala.

The grand finale event will mark the end of the“HI5” schools puzzle challenge that commenced in 2015 and will see top schools per region walk away with a grand prize of 25million UGX for first place, 10million UGX for second place and 5million UGX for third place, and the money will be used for any school project of their choice, all courtesy of Blueband.

The top 2 pupils nationally will win an all-expense paid educational tour trip to the Nile and Tanzania’s Zanzibar islands with their guardians. While the top 3 token collectors in each region will also be rewarded with vouchers worth 3million UGX, 2million UGX and 1million UGXof school fees for a year.

The most innovative teachers from each region who championed the promotion are also set to bag hefty prizes, with the top teachers bagging 1.5 million UGX, the second bagging – 1million UGX and third position set to see three teachers from each region bag 500,000 Uganda shillings each.

Schools and pupils across Uganda competed in the promotion by collecting tokens which were made available under the label lid of special promotional packs of Blueband for parents to purchase. Each child was also issued with a nutrition information meal planner booklet with the brand’s call to action to both pupils and parents to follow a proper diet by eating foods rich in micro nutrients.

The promotion that was centered on the message of optimal nutrition adopted the “HI 5”theme advocating for the five micro nutrients present in Blueband which are; Vitamin B6, D, A, FolicAcid and Niacin, which when taken with five daily recommended mealswill impart five attributes of strong teeth and bones, goodvision, energy, growthand immunity giving children the much needed optimal nutrition levels that will allow them to grow up healthy and achieve academic success.

Over 1000 schools with over 500,000 children were targeted for the promotion whose main message was centered on optimal nutrition.

Sheraton Kampala Hotel last week engaged in an exercise aimed at reaching out to its customers all over the country and across the region. This was part of Starwood’s Global Blitz exercise with a theme “Unstoppable” and had over 1000 hotels under the Starwood brand participating in similar activities.

Last year Sheraton had a ‘Downtown Sales Blitz’ and it was used a dipstick to understand the public’s perception of the Hotel, its products and services.Based on the findings the Sheraton sales team and the staff that participated had the opportunity to discover some of the possible areas for improvement and also used some positive feedback which the team has used to enhance their performance and service delivery.This was also an opportunity for the team to reach out to a market segment that was previously untapped.

“Following our sales blitz dipstick that we had last year downtown Kampala,we got a lot of feedback that we have used to improve our services and customer care.This year we conducted another sales blitz with the theme “Unstoppable” because we are the only International Brand hotel in Uganda and boast a rich heritage. During these sales blitz’ we get to meet our customers’ 1 on 1 and try to understand them and their specific needs as we also in form them of our various products, services and offers.

This year we used a different unique approach where we called many of our customer from our data base all in Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, South Sudan just to mention a few. Participants included senior managers from various departments as well as members of the Sales teams.Each member was assigned a session in the “WarRoom” to interact with customers. This was done to help us understand our customers more and use the insight to improve our interaction with customers all the time.” Explained the Sheraton Marketing director Ms. Jennifer Musiime.

The hospitality industry in Uganda is extremely competitive and the management of Sheraton Kampala acknowledges this fact, so it strives hard to stay on top by trying out new things like improving their menus,improving their services and hiring international chefs, creating new dining concept and partnering with various events to fully utilize the hotel’s sprawling garden space. The sales blitz helps also helps Sheraton discover new things the customers’ desire to find at Sheraton and this has so far helped improve Sheraton.

“We are privileged to have a good market share in Uganda and we are not resting until we have achieved a consistent market share leader status. This year we have a lot in stock for our customers like recently we set up an amazing Women’s day dinner with a theme of “Phenomenal Woman…” after a hugely successful Valentine’s day celebration at the Paradise and Seven Seas Restaurants and this is just a sneak peak of what we have lined up this year. Sheraton has definitely stood the test of time and understands the needs and demographics of the hospitality industry. We often translate this experience into our impeccable services and customer care.” Concluded Jennifer.