As a child, I started working in a small restaurant in Aden and then travelled to Ethiopia in 1950. There I worked as a cashier and waiter in a small restaurant, until 1954, when I returned to my village in Bani Shaiba, Taiz governorate.
In 1956, the Shaibani Association in Aden gave me the opportunity to continue my studies in Egypt. Then I travelled to the United States to pursue undergraduate education, where I managed to work and study at the same time.
My real career started in 1970, in the Economic Organization for Public Sector and National Planning, in Aden, and later as a commercial director and board member for Yemen Airways until 1980.
In 1982, I started my journey in the amazing private sector, where I experienced and faced many challenges and a stormy business climate. Thanks to God, with the creative thinking, great sacrifices and commitment of our professional employees, not only are we still surviving, but we are even expanding our business.
Coming from a modest background myself, I believe in giving back to the community. The Universal Group has a strategic objective regarding corporate social responsibility. However, this was not enough I felt, so I decided to establish something more sustainable and hence I helped to create the Yemen Education for Employment Foundation (YEFE) in cooperation with leading Yemeni businessmen and the American Foundation for Education and Employment (EFE). This local and non-profit foundation trains Yemenis for free on marketable skills and facilitates their access to the labor market.
In a similar venture, Universal Group has initiated Al Khair Foundation for Social Development to empower Yemeni youth, especially those from isolated and neglected regions, such as Marib, Shabwa and Al Jawf. The second batch of them consists of 60 trainees from the three governorates. They will soon start their six months training in English Language, driving, tourism guiding and Business Edge.
The Universal Group continuously works to support young men and women. At Universal, we give great attention to the empowerment of women. Some of them have been promoted to supervisory and managerial positions. It is worth mentioning that young females in our companies have proved to be very efficient and, in certain jobs, even more productive than their counterparts.
Insecurity is tourism's worst enemy
Everyone knows that when a security incident happens in Yemen most of the world's governments issue a travel warning, advising its citizens against coming to Yemen. Then, automatically, the number of visitors to Yemen is affected dramatically and that causes great damage to the tourism industry.
As a counteraction we try to activate a network of local and international journalists who are interested in Yemen and get them to publish positive stories in order to shed some positive light on Yemen and achieve some damage control.
Moreover, while still admitting the security problems, we have to speak up for the security and safety measures carried out by the Yemeni government to fight terrorism. It is true that we have a security problem but there are efforts for improvement which must be recognized.
This is probably also an opportunity to call on western countries to be more careful in the way in which they warn against visiting Yemen. They should decrease the level of warning as anyone who visits Yemen realizes that the security issue, as reported worldwide, is exaggerated.
The impact of bad publicity has not only affected individual visitors, but furthermore many international tourism companies have had to cancel their packages to Yemen because of such restrictions.
Never give up
Despite this, we are continuously promoting Yemen to the world whether as a tourist destination or as a land full of investment opportunities. Sometimes I feel like a person rowing a small boat against the tide, but if we just give up we will be washed down by the current and it will be much harder to row upstream again.
However, the tourism industry, if managed smartly could provide Yemen with a huge income and Yemenis with so many job opportunities. I am confident that tourism is the future of Yemen.
Sometimes the trick is a small project in which we invest today and which will lead to a significant improvement in tourism. Sometimes it is about better transportation routes to tourist sites. Other times it is about adding a restroom and refreshments shop on a route to a historic landmark.
Even if we have no international tourists at all, and I could never imagine a time when no one is any longer interested in Yemen, even then we can continue to encourage local and regional tourism. Yemenis should learn more about their country and by travelling and enjoying the various beautiful landmarks of the country not only do they have a good time, but also develop sense of loyalty.
My advice to ambitious Yemenis is: Hard work, dedication, business ethics and proper investment of time, skills and social contacts are the main factors leading to success. Definitely, Qat chewing is not among them.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket
The global economic crisis has affected Yemen's tourism industry severely. In order to survive we have branched out and invested in other fields such as travel and tourism services, courier services, car rental and other fields that could support other sister companies in the down turn period.
This is perhaps something that many companies in Yemen and other countries are doing and frankly speaking it is a sound management decision. After all, the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket" did not come from a vacuum.
Also we have created partnerships and joint ventures with other companies to create synergies. We believe in the added value of cooperation between projects especially for those working in the same field and whose interests meet.
Obviously to be successful in the business sector one has to be competitive, but at the same time one should not adopt blind competitiveness as this blinds one to opportunities and common interests.
Moreover, one mustn't forget that making good use of existing resources is also a strategic business move. For example we renovated some old, traditional Yemeni buildings and turned them into boutique hotels such as Al-Hawta Palace Hotel in Hadramout and Bir Al-Azab Hotel in Sana'a which will open in 2012. In this way we are preserving heritage and at the same time giving our guests the opportunity to experience history and tradition in a very special way.
However, one of the problems of the hotel business in Yemen is that a grading system is almost nonexistent, so it becomes hard to classify whether this is a two or four star hotel. I am the president of the Hotel Union, and I admit that we have not achieved much so far in that respect.
Politics or rather politicizing businesses is one of the main obstacles that the Yemeni private sector is suffering from. Sometimes, political and tribal.
By Nadia Al-Sakkaf
© Yemen Times 2010
