Flavio Briatore last weekend arrived at his Billionaires Resort in Malindi, his second hospitality venture after the award winning ‘Lion in the Sun’.
Initially due to open earlier in the year, demand for top quality in construction and finishing led to a nearly 4 months delay, but all is well which ends well when this coming Saturday, in time for the Christmas travel boom, the resort will officially open.
Briatore, the former Renault and Benetton team F1 Supremo, will reportedly spend his Christmas holiday with his family and friends at the resort. Earlier in the year he visited Malindi to inspect progress in the construction, and was seen at the time in the company of embattled Silvio Berlusconi. The former Italian Prime Minister, who after a final court verdict in Italy’s Supreme Court appears to have been banned from travelling abroad cannot therefore enjoy Malindi’s hospitality and the amenities of the resort where he, according to local Malindi sources, bought a luxury apartment.
The success of selling the condominiums of the first phase has led to Briatore considering to build more apartments and luxurious suites to meet the growing demand.
According to a local source in Malindi who sent in the report earlier this morning, have the many Italian investors in Malindi in the past asked the Kenyan government to expand the runway at the Malindi airport to facilitate nonstop flights from Italy, since the town, located over 100 kilometres north of Mombasa, is now one of Italy’s most favoured holiday destinations. This demand is likely to be repeated by Briatore on opening of the new resort besides a range of other concerns vis a vis the provision of utilities and most important security for investors and visitors.
‘They say that direct flights will avoid flying to Mombasa and then going by road to Malindi which is a big delay and loss of vacation time which makes them lose more than half a day just to reach there and go back to the airport in Mombasa. They say that nonstop flights will bring charters directly to Malindi and help revive the town’s tourism fortunes even further. Resorts like those of Mr. Briatore are top class and will attract the sort of clientele we can only dream of.
They will spend a lot of money, and when they go on safari they will fly to the parks, not drive by road. The tourism industry in Malindi has also made the same requests and while the airport terminal has been modernized, we need a longer runway and enough parking for their private jets. Flights connecting via Nairobi are a bit of an inconvenience considering the congestion at JKIA and the 8 flights by KQ each week between Nairobi and Malindi are not enough. You see, international travelers do not want to use the low cost option, they want to either use an airline which can be included in their ticket from Europe or even better, have direct flights. But because KQ has stopped flying to Rome this is a big setback for Italians to come visit Kenya. So if Malindi had a longer runway, charter flights could bridge that gap’.
