Guesthouse owner’s winning streak

Just four years after she first started her maiden bed and breakfast establishment, Queenstown's Maria Nyawula has amassed several prestigious small business and tourism accolades.

After losing everything she owned in a fire that burnt her house to the ground along with equipment she had been using for a catering and sewing business, Nontlupheko Nyawula embarked on a journey that would see her become an award-winning Bed and Breakfast owner.

Among her accolades is the South African Tourism's Welcome Awards and the Tourism Entrepreneur of the year, all in 2009. Her Victoria Manor guesthouse holds the title of best new business for the Africa SMME awards and was the second runner up for the overall prize.

"One of my significant awards came when the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) helped me with developing marketing material for my Queenstown Victoria Manor guesthouse for the Africa SMME Awards in 2009.

"The marketing material included brochures; signage and website revamp helped me make a good impression at the awards. Subsequently I was runner up which has put my business on a growth path," says Nyawula.

Nyawula says the business is now on a growth path and the awards have put her business on the map. It is now well known and has history behind it. Victoria Manor hosted Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles in 1947.

When Nyawula was first introduced to Victoria Manor, she immediately fell in love with it but did not believe she had acquired enough credit worthiness to buy it at the price of R2, 4 million.

Nyawula's rise to greater heights in business has been meteoric. She started her bed and breakfast business in her four bedroom home in 2004 hosting her first 50 guests who were nurses traveling together.

"They said their budget was R25 000 and they did not mind being squashed together. I accepted because I had never had that much money at any one time, so to me it was a lot of money," says Nyawula.

At the time she was working hard to make ends meet after her police officer husband was medically boarded having been shot on duty. Dealing with her daughter's cancer, her house burning down, you could say Nyawula endured more than her fair share of hardships.

However, the feisty go getter refused to take life's blows lying down and certainly would not live up to her name.

"I had nothing when I started out, not a spoon, no beds and no crockery," she recounts. "I dreamed of opening a B&B but the house we currently live in was in a poor state because we had been renting it out and did not even have enough for repairs."

But Nyawula refused to give in. She went to Buildrite and convinced the manager to give her building supplies on credit, which she would pay when her business made enough money. She did the same with furniture shops until she got all she needed to get her business going from toaster to beds.

"It was not easy because I was not credit worthy. I am very thankful to the people who were prepared to take a chance on me," Nyawula says. Victoria Manor is now a four star establishment which turns over R2 million per year.

Nyawula has her sights set on building 15 more rooms, a swimming pool, a sauna and a gym for her guests.