Chanters Lodge – Restaurant Terrace


Yesterday I posted a Guest review from Louisa Chanda, together with a photo of our pool. Louisa works in Customer Relations with Proflight, Zambia’s leading domestic airline and stayed with us recently at Chanters Lodge with her family – here’s the second great photo showing our restaurant terrace.

Louisa’s dad Chris Thackray and I first met in Malawi in 1976! It was great to see him again after a long time and to catch up on all his news. He and his charming wife Birgitta now live in Sweden, fairly near Stockholm.

Louisa was also busy hunting down new office premises for Proflight in Livingstone city centre – when they’re open I’ll let you know when and where!

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TripAdvisor – 100 Reviews


Today we clocked 100 reviews on TripAdvisor for Chanters Lodge! Not bad for a small establishment! Thank goodness it happened to be an excellent one, they aren’t always! Happily we have more good than bad on that important site: Here it is, for the record:

“My wife and I along with our two adult daughters and their partners had the pleasure of staying with Richard and staff in early May. The abundant advice and help Richard offers are what makes his establishment so unique. Nothing is too much trouble for him to assist with. We really enjoyed relaxing by the pool and thought the restaurant with it’s large menu was excellent value. We ate almost all our meals there and especially enjoyed the local dishes. The rooms are very basic and adequate. We were only in our rooms for sleeping and the rest of our time was spent either sightseeing or relaxing in the pool and gardem area. I can’t recommend Chanters Lodge enough and it’s the only place we will stay when we return. Congratulations to Richard and his staff, they’re providing excellent value for travellers!!”

Couldn’t have put it better myself!! Thanks to everyone who’s ever reviewed our lodge, good or bad – without Guest feedback we’d be nowhere.

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More From Mustapha’s Place


The latest from this awesome tropical paradise. Talk about mouth watering!

“We have a new chef now at Mustapha’s Place, and we are going to be doing Thai dishes such as crab and coconut cakes, hot and sour crispy squid and lime salad, steamed fish with lemongrass and fried fish with chilli and tamarind as well as classics such as jumbo prawns in red curry paste and massaman chicken curry. We will still be serving an array of Swahili classics as well.

We are also going to be launching our new Casuarina treetop spa shortly (mid-July) and also check out our hotel blog for travel pieces on undiscovered Zanzibar, such as the new Kiwengwa-Pongwe forest reserve, the old village of Unguja Ukuu and the Jambiani cultural village tour.”

How nice is that?!I seriously want to spend time there, sleep and eat!

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The Yellow Lobster


I loved this from FreshInc!

“If you’re going to make a mess, make it a big one. That’s the lesson Seattle entrepreneur and angel investor Andy Sack gives to his portfolio companies in regards to innovation. Specifically, rather than tinkering around with existing business models, Sack suggests that if you really want to create something new, then you must break with the traditional ways of doing things and make a full push to innovate. Or as he puts it, “If you’re going to break the model, don’t just break it a little.”

He cites the iPhone as an example of such a game-changer. Coincidentally, CNN’s offbeat story of a yellow lobster found by fishermen in Massachusetts also manages to illustrate Sack’s point, albeit in a weird kind of way. Thousands and thousands of lobsters are caught everyday, but not many of them make the front page of CNN’s Web site. By being completely different, this lucky, yellow-tinged crustacean not only managed to make front-page news but he also found a way to avoid the lobster pot.

Moral of the story: It pays to be different!”

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Food & Beverage


This (shortened piece) from Beth Kormanik at HotelInteractive.com interested me, click the link for the whole article. I’ve commented below each paragraph in bold italics on how I think the piece reflects our situation at Chanters Lodge, Livingstone.

“During a recession, as the truism goes, bar sales go up. But could a properly priced beer, drive room sales at full-service hotels, too? That’s the belief of Michael George, president and CEO Crescent Hotels & Resorts, which owns, operates and manages hotels for institutional investors. In his experience, bar business is up “substantially,” especially at full-service hotels that also have a nice atmosphere and an attractive staff.”

We have a nice atmosphere, reasonably priced beer and attractive staff but our bar sales are static. Would we be more profitable if we just offered bed and breakfast? I often ask myself, and how would that effect our Guests.

“One of the simplest things we did to drive cash flow was to properly set our beer prices,” he said. “Properly priced Bud moves rooms.”

We are about to ‘adjust’ all our food and beverage prices in view of increased costs. What constitutes ‘properly priced’? I wonder.

Thomas Edward Middleton, Jr., a senior vice president at Hilton Hotels Corporation, said guests are eating more meals outside their hotels and that the F&B spend across the Hilton brand is down as much as 50 percent. Hilton’s ideas to recapture guest F&B spend include bringing in celebrity chefs, well-known concepts and menus that feature fresh, simple and healthy foods. They also are outsourcing. “It’s always amazed me, in the hotel business all companies struggle with F&B,” he said. “The best thing we’ve come up with is third-party leases. It’s very difficult to lose with third-party leases.”

Now where would we find celebrity chefs and/or a third party lease in Livingstone….? We do offer fresh, simple and fairly healthy foods but have to accept that lots of tourists want to experience the restaurants that Livingstone has to offer. Attracting outsiders to eat here seems more and more difficult.

But George argued that food and beverage outlets should not be considered an “evil necessity” to outsource. He said Crescent operates all of its own F&B outlets and they add a crucial edge over select-service hotels. “From a food component, the point of being full service is to be convenient at a good price,” he said. “Put the focus on it. The guests are looking for it.”

Sometimes our bar and restaurant seem to be an ‘evil necessity’ at other times great fun and good earners! It largely depends on the Guests we have staying.

“Wyndham Hotels and Resorts President Jeff Wagoner said the key is to be flexible and match the right food concept for every hotel. One hotel recently was asked to implement a “grab and go” feature, which normally is the hallmark of select-service properties. This particular hotel was not in a commercial area that would attract walk-by traffic from the neighborhood and its restaurant was suffering. “You don’t want to force it and have restaurant where you’re not going to have profit,” Wagoner said.”

Our menu evolves to reflect local cuisine and the most popular of our dishes on offer with timely innovation too.

“The old full service generic hotel direction is a wave of the past, like Top 40 radio,” she said. “We’re in the iPod generation. Everything is customized and focused on the future. We have to be in tune with our consumer and how they’re changing. The chains that understand that and innovate as times change are the ones that will succeed.”

Radio’s still popular in these parts (thank goodness), but in my car? Mp3!
The picture’s of part of our restaurant at Chanters Lodge.

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