Longest distance between two points

Miami to Toronto.
Toronto to London.
Stop for 15 hours.
London to Rome.
Rome to Bujumbura.
Bujumbura to Kigali.

And FINALLY Denise arrives.

This intrepid (crazy) food and beverage industry expert will spend over a month working as a Bpeace traveling mentor with Symprose at her hotel, conference center and restaurant in Butare. Denise and Steve leave Saturday to kick things off with a customer service intensive.

Update: In the short weeks which followed the above posting, Denise went to fast work. Below is a highly edited excerpt (we don't want too must shared with the local competition!) from an email she sent us Sept 20th on her progress in Butare :

Muraho,

During my first few days in Rwanda, I participated in a customer service training program with Steve and I also got a chance to better understand Symphrose's business in detail. I found Steve's training to be very helpful, especially seeing how quickly the hotel's staff members caught on to what was being taught. They clearly understand the difference between good and bad customer service and stated that they would recommended that guests chose a different hotel if they could not provide good customer service. It seemed to me that they understood how to be sympathetic and empathetic to guest's needs.

The hotel is very bright, clean and quiet . . . .being away from the busy main street of Butare. Customers perceive this hotel to be of higher quality than others. This may be because the room price is slightly higher than its competitor's or because it is a new hotel and the other neighboring hotels are very old and not as clean as Ku Itaba.

After completing a competitor review at three neighboring hotels, Ibis, Credo, and Faucon, it is our conclusion that our competitive edge would be in promoting the cleanliness, newness and spaciousness of our hotel. The other hotels facilities are very old and they do not provide conference or banquet services. However, they all have an established reputation because they have all been around for more than 20 years each.

In an effort to establish a good reputation throughout Rwanda, building on our service delivery and building relationships with our patrons are key. During my 13 days here in Rwanda, we have developed new relationships with many potential guests and current patrons. We have hosted two luncheons for NEW DAWN ASSOCIATION, which is a local company that promotes Responsible Tourism. They also provide consulting and event management services. There events have been successful and they have noted the improvement service delivery and timeliness of service in our hotel. They have voiced there desire to return with other tour groups that they will have in the future.

There is also now a local radio advertisement for the hotel and street signs with the new Ku Itaba logo, which Bpeace helped design, can be found around town. The hotel is also advertised in the brochures being distributed by the tourism office.

Major areas that have been focused on thus far include the following: Appropriate greetings, suggestive selling, checking back at the table, wait times for beverages and food items, refrigeration and food storage and further training using the customer service guide book created by Steve combined with English phrases and teamwork.

This hotel has great potential to be the premiere hotel of Butare.

That's all for now.