Standing at the heart of Addis Ababa’s Kazanchis Business District, Radisson Blu Hotel, Addis Ababa has defined the city’s international business hospitality landscape since it opened in 2012. With 212 rooms and suites, ten multifunctional meeting spaces, three food-and-beverage venues, and a location minutes from the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the hotel operates at the intersection of African diplomacy, commerce and luxury travel. When the property undertook a comprehensive refurbishment in 2022, Zhobai was appointed to deliver the complete hotel furniture FF&E solution — redesigning and refurnishing every guest-facing space from individual guestrooms to the lobby, bar, dining areas and conference facilities.
Project Overview
The Radisson Blu Addis Ababa is a full-service upper-upscale hotel catering primarily to international diplomats, senior executives and long-stay business guests. Its 212 keys encompass Standard Rooms, Superior Rooms, Executive Rooms with lounge access, One-Bedroom Suites and a Presidential Suite — each category serving a distinct guest profile with distinct furniture demands. Beyond the guestroom floors, the property manages a high-volume meeting calendar, daily dining for in-house and external guests, and an active bar programme that includes the signature Lounge Bar’s weekly “Arabian Night” events. Zhobai’s brief was to refresh and replace the full FF&E inventory while respecting the brand standards of Radisson Blu’s global portfolio and honouring the cultural context of Addis Ababa.
The 2022 Renovation Brief
After a decade of intensive operation — serving visiting heads of state, UN delegations and the African business community — the hotel’s furniture showed the cumulative wear inevitable in a property of this calibre and throughput. The 2022 renovation represented not a superficial refresh but a root-and-branch reimagining of the guest experience: new furniture concepts for every room category, a remodelled lobby and bar programme, and upgraded meeting and event furniture throughout. For Zhobai, the challenge was to deliver a fully coordinated FF&E package on a live, operational hotel — phasing installation to minimise room inventory disruption while maintaining the property’s five-star standards throughout construction.
Design Language: Contemporary Africa
The design team established a material vocabulary that balances Radisson Blu’s signature contemporary aesthetic with the warmth and cultural richness of Ethiopian heritage. Deep terracotta and burnt amber upholstery reference the landscapes of the Ethiopian Highlands. Ebony-stained timber case goods and dark bronze hardware nod to the craftsmanship traditions of East African artisans. Woven textile accents in patterns drawing from traditional Ethiopian ceremonial fabrics appear as cushion covers, headboard panels and decorative screens throughout the property. The palette is confident without being theatrical — the hotel reads as distinctly African without falling into cliché.
Guestroom Furniture Programme
With 212 keys across five distinct categories, the guestroom programme was both the largest and most logistically demanding component of the project.
Standard & Twin Rooms (30 m²)
The standard room category — the workhorse of any business hotel — required furniture that performs night after night under intensive commercial use while projecting a sense of considered luxury. Zhobai specified a platform bed in dark stained oak with an upholstered headboard in a graphic woven textile, flanked by floating bedside shelves with integrated charging points and reading lights. A credenza in ebony-toned timber with cane-inset drawer fronts runs the full width of the sleeping zone, providing generous storage while giving the room its primary decorative statement. Twin-bed configurations use the same case goods, with scaled-down individual bedside units maintaining proportion across both layouts.
The work desk — critical for the hotel’s business guest profile — is a full-width solid surface unit in warm grey stone composite with an integrated cable management channel and a pull-out keyboard tray. Paired with an ergonomic task chair upholstered in performance mesh and a separate occasional chair in terracotta leather for reading, the workspace serves equally as a productive office and a comfortable perch for room service dining.
Superior & Executive Rooms (30 m², Upper Floors)
Superior rooms on the upper floors share the same furniture programme as standard rooms but introduce a more elevated upholstery palette — deeper jewel tones, heavier curtain fabrics, and upgraded accent lighting — to differentiate the category. Executive rooms add access to the dedicated executive lounge and receive an additional upholstered armchair with a matching ottomanin the room, creating a private lounge corner suited to the longer stays and informal in-room meetings typical of this guest segment.
Bathroom Furniture
Across all room categories, Zhobai supplied a coordinated bathroom furniture package: a wall-hung vanity unit in moisture-resistant MDF with a honed stone basin top, dark bronze tap fittings and integrated under-sink storage; a frameless LED mirror with touch-sensor dimming; and a freestanding teak bath stool for superior rooms and above. The vanity design is open-plan in executive rooms and suites, where a glazed screen between the bathroom and sleeping zone creates the connected, spacious feel that high-tier business travellers increasingly expect.
One-Bedroom Suites (75 m²)
The suite programme offered the greatest design latitude of the project. With a separate living zone and bedroom, each one-bedroom suite could express the hotel’s design narrative at a higher register of materiality and detail. Zhobai supplied a three-seat sofa in deep burgundy performance velvet with hand-stitched cushions in Ethiopian textile prints, flanked by two swivel accent chairs in cognac leather. A solid ebony coffee table with a hand-hammered brass tray top anchors the seating group. A console table behind the sofa — in dark walnut with a gallery rail of ebonised steel — provides a surface for art objects and a backdrop for the suite’s statement lighting.
A dining nook adjacent to the living area — furnished with a four-seat round table in dark marble composite and dining chairs in woven leather — provides an intimate setting for in-suite entertaining. Suites with fireplace configurations received a bespoke hearth surround in honed black granite, with a low upholstered bench seating unit facing it — a deeply personal touch that transforms the suite’s evening atmosphere.
Presidential Suite (95 m²)
The Presidential Suite demanded the highest level of custom fabrication in the project. Zhobai produced a bespoke sectional sofa in a hand-blocked Ethiopian cotton print with solid brass leg castings, a dedicated home-office zone with a custom leather-topped writing desk and a pair of high-back meeting chairs, and a full kitchenette unit in lacquered cabinetry with integrated appliances — all finished to a residential standard that befits heads of state and C-suite guests who call this suite home for days at a time. A dedicated terrace zone received teak outdoor furniture with a private dining set for four, offering panoramic views over the city.
Lobby & Public Circulation
The lobby is the hotel’s primary impression-making space — a point of daily passage for in-house guests, visiting delegates and Addis Ababa’s business community alike. Zhobai’s lobby package centred on a new reception island in dark granite with bronze-trimmed fascias, a custom seating arrangement of modular sofas and loose chairs in coordinating terracotta and burnt orange, and a series of round side tables in cast brass that double as display surfaces for curated Ethiopian craft objects. Biophilic elements — tall indoor planters, woven rattan room dividers and hanging textile installations — soften the architecture and bring the warmth of Ethiopian botanical culture into the interiors.
Bar & Lounge Furniture
The Lounge Bar is one of the most socially active spaces in the hotel — hosting the diplomatic and business community for after-work drinks, weekly themed evenings and private celebrations. Zhobai supplied a custom bar counter in backlit onyx panels with a dark bronze structural frame, supported by a full back-bar unit in smoked mirror and illuminated shelving for the hotel’s extensive wine and spirits collection. High bar stools in saddle leather with brass footrails line the counter, while the lounge seating area offers a mix of low club chairs in bottle-green velvet, two-seat love seats in cognac leather and marble-top side tables — a deliberately varied programme that encourages both intimate conversations and larger group gatherings.
Dining Furniture
The hotel’s principal dining venue, Verres en Vers, operates as a French brasserie open for breakfast, lunch and dinner — a format that demands furniture capable of transitioning between the relaxed informality of a buffet morning service and the polished formality of an evening a la carte setting. Zhobai delivered solid ash dining tables in a dark oil finish with rounded corners for easy service flow, upholstered dining chairs in a stripe-weave fabric that references French bistro tradition while reading as globally contemporary, and a series of corner banquette booths in deep burgundy leather for guests seeking a more private dining experience. The outdoor terrace extension received a fully weather-resistant furniture package in powder-coated aluminium and UV-stable woven resin, maintaining design consistency with the interior while withstanding Addis Ababa’s variable highland climate.
Meeting & Event Spaces
As a primary venue for international conferences, diplomatic receptions and high-level corporate events, the hotel’s ten meeting rooms and main banquet hall represent a critical revenue stream. Zhobai furnished each meeting room with a configuration-flexible approach: modular conference tables with cable-managed power and data ports, executive leather chairs with lumbar adjustment and castors, and credenzas along the perimeter wall for equipment storage and refreshment staging. Smaller boardroom configurations seat 10 to 20 in a fixed oval arrangement; larger syndicate rooms use Zhobai’s stackable linking-chair system to shift from classroom to theatre to cabaret setup within minutes.
The main banquet hall — capable of hosting up to 350 guests for a gala dinner or 500 in theatre configuration — received a complete furniture refresh: new ballroom chairs in champagne velvet with a gilded frame, 72-inch round banquet tables in dark walnut veneer with self-levelling feet, and a portable stage and lectern system in a complementary dark timber finish. The banquet entrance corridor was furnished with a series of statement console tables and upholstered bench seats creating a formal pre-function reception zone.
Wellness & Fitness
The hotel’s Rainforest Day Spa and 24-hour fitness centre complete the guest wellness offering. Zhobai furnished the fitness centre with a custom equipment arrangement console — a continuous dark timber and stainless steel storage and display unit housing personal training accessories, towel stations and equipment charging points — alongside a stretching area fitted with premium rubber flooring and wall-mounted mirror panels in a frameless dark-stained timber surround.
The Zhobai One-Stop Process
Delivering a full refurbishment of a live, 212-key upper-upscale hotel in sub-Saharan Africa’s busiest diplomatic capital required extraordinary coordination. Zhobai’s delivery model ran across four phases:
- Design & Specification (Months 1–3): Zhobai’s design team collaborated with the hotel’s interior architects and Radisson Blu’s regional brand team to develop a full FF&E specification — producing sample boards, 3D room mock-ups and brand compliance documentation for every category before any piece entered production.
- Custom Manufacturing (Months 4–8): All furniture was produced at Zhobai’s ISO 9001-certified Guangdong facilities. Every item underwent finish durability testing, fire-retardancy certification to international hotel standards, and a full dimensional pre-delivery inspection. Upholstered items received EN 1021 cigarette and match ignition testing appropriate to the hospitality application.
- International Logistics (Months 9–10): Zhobai coordinated end-to-end container shipping from Guangdong to Djibouti port and onward by road to Addis Ababa — a routing that required close cooperation with the hotel’s procurement team on customs documentation, duty classification and port timing to meet the project’s phased installation schedule.
- Phased Installation & Handover (Months 10–12): To avoid taking the hotel offline, Zhobai’s installation team worked floor by floor, completing each guestroom floor before the next was taken out of service. Public area furniture was installed during low-occupancy periods, with final snagging completed during a single pre-agreed three-day closure of the lobby and F&B areas.
Result
The 2022 refurbishment repositioned Radisson Blu Addis Ababa as the premier hospitality address in Ethiopia’s capital — a distinction the hotel has maintained through consistent five-star guest ratings since reopening. The furniture has been specifically recognised in online reviews for its quality and comfort, with business guests noting the ergonomic desk setup, the suite fireplace experience and the bar atmosphere as standout elements of their stay.
For Zhobai, the project demonstrated the breadth of our one-stop capability: managing an internationally shipped, full-hotel refurbishment on a live property, on schedule, across guestrooms, suites, dining, bar, meeting and wellness spaces — delivered as a single, seamless programme from first design meeting to final handover.
Project Snapshot
- Project: Radisson Blu Hotel, Addis Ababa
- Client: Radisson Hotel Group
- Location: Kazanchis Business District, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Scale: 212 rooms & suites; 10 meeting rooms; 3 F&B venues
- Scope: Full FF&E — guestrooms, suites, lobby, bar, dining, meeting rooms, banquet hall, fitness centre
- Timeline: 12 months from design to handover
- Completion: 2022 Refurbishment
- Services: Design collaboration · Custom manufacturing · QC · International logistics · Phased on-site installation
Planning a hotel furniture refurbishment or new-build FF&E project? Contact Zhobai to discuss your requirements.
