Lanre Balogun: Job Creation Drives Ikogosi’s Multi-million-naira Tourism Investments

General Manager of Glocient Hospitality, the concessionaire of the Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort and Conference Centre in Ekiti State, Lanre Balogun, speaks about how the resort attracts guests of different categories and the investments in the past one year, among others. Charles Ajunwa brings excerpts 

Can tell us some of the changes that have taken place at the resort  in past one year? 

Glocient Hospitality, the operators of Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort, is the hospitality arm of Cavista Holdings. Our goal at Glocient, is to transform moribund tourist attractions in Nigeria into profitable businesses and national treasures. A blueprint of that, is Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort. Ikogosi is better experienced. If you had been here four years ago, Ikogosi was not a place that was habitable. We have done a lot and it will interest you to know that every transformation you see here, are done by Nigerians – Nigerian experts and artisans. No foreign experts. They were done by us because we built capacity over the years.  I brought Radisson into Nigeria, and I was with the group for over two decades. That experience of operator-selector, conceptualisation, construction, pre-opening and design, is what we brought in here to transform Ikogosi. Some of you were here last year, there are noticeably improvements. Honestly, these improvements and investments will continue and we continue to upgrade. When you came last year, I’m sure we didn’t have an alternative source of energy. Then we had diesel generator as our backup. Now, we’ve invested close to $200,000 (about N275 million) in renewable energy. This covered the cost of the purchasing and installing the solar panels and other ancillary items such as the building, the AC, cables, chairs, and other things required to support the installation of the solar. This serves us 12 hours every day. The savings we are making with the benchmark of 500KVA is over half a billion in a year. That benchmark was done with our 500KVA generator running for 10 hours savings alone. When we did the financial analysis for one year, as I said, we would be saving over half a billion. That’s huge. That’s the kind of investment we are making in Ikogosi. We have a multi-year concession, and the government is impressed by what we’ve been able to do so far. We have employed over 230 staff, almost 70 per cent of the staff are female and over 60 per cent of them are from Ikogosi  community. Government has no business in business but what it can do is to create the enabling environment for businesses like ours to thrive. Kudos to the government of the Ekiti State under the leadership of  Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, they have been very supportive.

In terms of accessibility, we have two airports that are close to Ikogosi. We have an airport in Ado, it’s less than 50 minutes from Ikogosi, and we have an airport in Akure, which is also less than 50 minutes to Ikogosi. We are in an advantageous location. Security challenges are not as bad as people portray them on social media. We encourage people to promote Nigeria positively. Promote our resort, Ikogosi as a national asset. People go all over the world to promote Kenya, Zimbabwe and the rest. Honestly, Nigeria is a beautiful place, and Ikogosi is a testament of that where you have warm and cold water springs flowing side by side, maintaining their thermal properties, and the water we use here is pure spring water piped into all the rooms. The water in rooms that our guests drink, take shower come from the spring water. No chemicals in the swimming pool. The vegetables that we eat, we grow them here. Even the food waste, yam peels, banana peels are channelled to the livestock that we grow. So, it’s a sustainable ecosystem and we want people to support this business.

You said you saved about half a billion, was it in naira or dollars? 

It’s naira. We spent N1,900 per litre on diesel using a benchmark of the consumption of the generator. Assuming you run the generator for 10 hours a day and the generator uses 200 litres or 1,000 liters in two days. If you calculate 1,000 using 1,900 per litre accumulated for one year, this amounts to N513,000,000. So, in less than a year it has paid for itself.  In hospitality business, even if you have one guest in a room, the generator must be on. And there are things you can’t run without power like the internet facility, pumping machines and others. 

One of the ways to promote this place is to bring high-value guests that will attract huge interest. Why is it not possible for you to attract the federal executive council meeting here, not ministerial?

We have had several government agencies that I don’t want to mention their names, national agencies and  legislative arm. And some national issues are also being discussed here but for obvious reasons, we don’t want to disclose all these. Take for example, the State Executives from Lagos State and Rivers State have visited Ikogosi. So, our focus is actually not just high individuals, but MICE destination. I can have a major company in Lagos, come with around 60 to 70 of their staff for four days. That translates to F&B revenue, accommodation, experience, merchandise. However, in hospitality, you can’t have enough. We want as much MICE business as possible. We encourage people to make Ikogosi their next destination. The environment here, is serene, peaceful and cool. 

What has been the inflow of traffic in the last one year? 

When we did our analysis year on year, our revenue has more than doubled the first quarter compared to 2025. Of course, we have more visibility and more business. Between March and April even though we surpassed our revenue targets, but business dipped from our projection. We had those months packed, however, energy cost more than doubled. The daily cost of 500KVA diesel generator is N1.4 million while monthly cost is N42 million. That is over N513, 000,000 in one year using the benchmark of N1,900. But you know diesel  also rose over N2,000 per litre. In the month of April alone, we spent over 46 million which increased the cost of production and that was what drove us to install solar panel. 

Apart from renewable energy, what other projects are you embarking upon in order to realise the resort’s full potential? 

You see, we’re investing heavily in rooms here because the order we’re getting is from 100, 120 and 150 rooms. From our own projection and the entire budget we’re working on now, we’re investing over two million Dollars in Camp A. Also, we will be expanding the laundry and scaling up our renewable energy. We want to scale up to 1 megawatts. For 72 hours, we haven’t used a drop of diesel, which is a lot of savings for us. We want to connect the whole resort to renewable energy.  As you can see, our location is quiet and we have our own peculiarities. In Lagos, you can survive with two washing machines because you are closer to maintenance and you are closer to technicians. 

If one breaks down, you can quickly put a call to Alaba to come and fix it. But in Ikogosi, I can’t afford to have two washing machines. It’s a risk having two washing machines. So, I would invest more in having three to four. If one breaks down, I can take two to four days for the technician to come from Lagos.  We stock more than Lagos will do. There’s a group that comes annually to the resort, when they come, they have their bill specifics. You can’t stock before their arrival. If you stock, you’re tying down your money. Here in Camp A, we want to elevate the structures to be better than what we have now. Going by international best practice, you turn around your asset every five years. So, we are planning, working, projecting, preparing BOQ to revamp all the rooms and also create a sustainable environment to the extent that we produce the yams and vegetables that we eat here. We want to get to the extent that even part of the experience, you are going to see what you consume and make choices. It’s a complete ecosystem. The primary purpose why our leader, Mr. Niyi John Olajide, is investing in Nigeria, is to create jobs. The creatives in Nigeria are young and energetic and he is adding value and transforming their lives. We’ve not started making profits, but we are moving to sustainability at this point. 

Resort assets in the Nigerian context, you have to be realistic, is not a business that you start today and you make money tomorrow. You must have the products that people will come, see, enjoy, and go back. Word of mouth goes along way and you need to let people know what you have. Take for example, the Presidential Suite, if you don’t invest in comforts like this, you can’t bring anybody to this place. Like I mentioned earlier, we more than doubled our revenue in 2025. In fact, in 2024, our growth was about 157 per cent. Year-on-year, 2025 and 2026, we more than doubled the first quarter. That is growth. By the end of the year it will grow. We are getting to the sustainability level. We make money and we’re reinvesting in the business. The investments we are making are what we will  use to build the resort. The structures that you are seeing are the investment that we are making. So, our mentality is different. Our goal is to manage our assets well. There are hotels that are not well managed. We are very deliberate and intentional about this. Every step that we take, is a step forward in achieving sustainability and profitability. Like our chairman used to say, ‘we are here for the long haul. We are not here for the short haul’. You can see it reflected in the way he is investing, expanding and building and reinvesting all the money we are making into projects in Nigeria. There are Nigerians that believe in Nigeria. Our chairman insists, he wants creative Nigerians to execute the projects. He says if he can do it abroad, there are Nigerians in this country that have capacity and knowledge to transform this country. That’s what we are doing. 

 What are you doing about the shopping centre at the resort? 

For shopping centre, technically, we are in the pre-opening phase in hospitality. The pre-opening phase is where you put all your equipment together. You run your equipment together. All your assets, furniture, fixers, and equipment, offices. What we are doing in Ikogosi is different. We’re conceptualising, constructing and training. For that shopping centre, the end goal is that we needed the spa desperately and that’s why we created the spa. The next phase we will be having a store for Adire Ekiti, the crafts from Ekiti. We want to specifically design the store for Adire Ekiti. Also, a mini store where you can get handy stuffs there. Then for the merchandise, at the reception that’s where you have the Ikogosi merchandise- mugs, T-shirts, caps, pharmacy, everything will be in the reception. So it’s a complete ecosystem. If you come into Ikogosi, everything you need will be there. 

During the mountain hike, we observed there were two children amongst us. Are there plans to convert tourism into values for families? 

Yes. For children, the long stretch where you have the Tree House, we call it forest park. That is the core centre of their activity here. There are kids play equipments that we purchased from the U.S. that we need. We are not saying you are Disney but we are creating a safe area for children where they can interact. So by December, we would have constructed the area for children. It’s going to be like a small village with swimming pool, and an area where they can move around freely. We have excellent security system here. When families come around, we have female and male butlers that can take care of children. We always make provisions for the meals they eat, provide football field for those that play soccer and basketball. In fact, the whole experience for sports is available. And family is something that we take  seriously.