The story of Mossadeck Bally, founder of Azalaï Hotels in Africa

While attending the Hostelya Forum in 2016, I met Mossadeck Bally, founder of the Azalaï Group. He’s an entrepreneur! He has created a hotel group in Africa that continues to expand. The hotel group complies with international hotel standards, and brings with it the traditional West African hospitality that has been handed down from generation to generation. This is a strong differentiator from other hotel groups in Africa.

How did you get into the hotel business? How do you say to yourself, “I’m going to create a hotel chain called Azalaï in Africa”?

In fact, it’s pure chance. I come from a family of shopkeepers. After graduating from high school, I went to San Francisco where I attended business school. I then joined the family business. We imported foodstuffs and were among the leaders in West Africa. And then I began to feel that I wasn’t adding any real value, even though I learned a lot during that period. My father was a great entrepreneur and merchant. He passed on his know-how to me.

So I looked for ways to diversify my business. At first, I thought of a mango juice factory in Mali, but then friends of mine, including suppliers, told me to look into the hotel sector because nothing had been done yet. I took advantage of an invitation to tender issued by the Malian government for the privatization of Bamako’s two largest hotels in 1993. At that point, I set up my own company and applied to manage the Grand Hotel. Thanks to a loan from the IFC (the private arm of the World Bank) we were able to renovate the hotel and buy our second plot of land to build a second hotel. In 2004, we took part in another tender in Burkina Faso, where we took over the Hôtel de l’Indépendance, followed by the Hôtel du 24 Septembre in Guinea Bissau in 2007, and the Hôtel de la Plage in Benin in 2008.

Why did you decide to create the “Azalaï” chain? What was your inspiration for the name?

In 2005, we had these two hotels in Bamako, the Grand Hôtel and Hôtel Salam, which we had built, and the Hôtel Indépendance in Ouagadougou. Although I’m a hotel investor, it’s true I’m not a hotelier, I’ve brought in professionals to manage the hotels. I didn’t want to sign management contracts with hotel chains. All you need to do is recruit good, qualified professionals. That’s when I decided I had to create my own brand.

I hired a communications agency, and asked them to come up with a logo, a name and a slogan, presenting our vision. I explained that we didn’t want to be just investors. We felt that there was a growing demand for African hotels, and we wanted to develop independently. The agency made us several proposals, and I chose “Azalaï”, which means caravan. The name Azalaï evokes the continent’s magnificent landscapes – it was the name of a trade route that crossed the Sahara. The merchants who led the caravans along the Azalaï route were renowned for their hospitality and generosity.

I come from a small village in the Timbuktu region, where the ancestral activity was to go to the salt mines and bring salt bars back to Timbuktu to exchange for food. That’s where our attraction for the name Azalaï comes from. Our slogan is “Africa welcomes you” because we wanted to bring Africa into our hotels.

What is your vision for the Group in 10 – 15 years?

It’s about continuing to grow. There’s a huge shortfall in hotel infrastructure on the African continent. Demand is very strong, the middle class is growing, and Africa is attracting more and more investors, despite economic crises such as Ebola. Our ambition is to complete the UEMOA (West African Economic and Monetary Union) zone. We have a presence in all member countries except Togo, where we are currently prospecting. We then want to expand into English-speaking West African countries. We have begun prospecting in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia… Over the next ten years, our ambition is to be present in all the CEDAO countries. In three months we’ll be opening in Mauritania, in six months in Côte d’Ivoire, in Guinea Conakry in 2018 and in Senegal in 2019.

What is the African art of entertaining?

Generally speaking, Africans have hospitality in their blood. It’s always a great event when we host in Africa. It’s cultural and sociological. It’s very important to be a good host. Even the poorest families are ready to give their all to ensure a warm welcome. It’s a cultural trait. We try to reflect this in the way we welcome our customers. That’s the difficulty and the challenge: how do you take a sociological reality and transpose it into the process? It’s a real challenge. Because on the one hand, it’s done in a natural way with nothing in return other than recognition on the part of the person you’re receiving, and on the other hand, it’s your activity, you do it for remuneration, it’s your job. We juggle these two aspects. On the other hand, our aim is not to standardize our offers, or at least to keep them to a minimum.

Standardization is compulsory because the customer wants a functional room and bathroom, wifi that works, and identical services … But around all this, we can add the specificity of the country, the terroir, the population. At Azalaï hotels, we have 12 identity points. For example, we welcome our customers with a glass of mint tea. We offer local coffee and one or two African dishes in our buffets. We also have a Moroccan lounge and a lounge bar in our hotels… Every time we build our hotels we ask the architects and engineers to bring authenticity and an African touch. We also promote culture. We exhibit painters in our living spaces.

We try to have African loincloths and African motifs for the receptionists’ uniforms and for the doorman.