When Sun International’s Rob Collins challenged City Lodge Hotel Group CEO, Clifford Ross, to take part in the first ever 702 Sun International CEO Sleepout outside the JSE on the chilly night of Thursday, 18 June, he accepted the challenge for this worthy cause.

He managed to raise a tidy R128,750 for Girls and Boys Town, with generous donations coming from staff, associates, suppliers, friends and even some guests.

Asked about the night, Ross said the hardest part was not so much the cold, but the unfriendly cement underneath his cardboard “matrass”, plus the surrounding noises that made it tricky to sleep.

As the City Lodge Hotel Group is in the business of providing quality, comfortable and value for money accommodation for both business and leisure travellers, it was quite something for a leading hotelier to be finding out how hard it is to spend a night on the street, totally opposite to what being an hotelier is all about.

Ross rates the CERO Sleepout as “an incredible experience for a very worthy cause, with great camaraderie displayed by all the business leaders who were part of the special event.”

City Lodge has 52 hotels in South Africa, one in Botswana and two in Kenya and is in the process of building two more in South Africa (Newtown in Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg). The group owns the Courtyard Hotel, City Lodge Hotel, Town Lodge, Road Lodge and Fairview Hotel brands. It also has plans to open more hotels in various East and Southern African countries.