Ramada hotel heading to Nairobi

Participants of the Kenya Hospitality Trade Fair (KHTF), which opened its doors to the public this morning at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, will no doubt be buoyed by breaking news that one of the world’s better-known brands, Ramada International, is heading to the Kenyan capital with a preliminary opening date given as end of 2014.

The hotel will, according to information received yesterday, be located in the Westlands area of Nairobi, which in recent years has established itself as a second major business district apart from the CBD. The new hotel is owned by a company based in the UAE’s Ras al Khaimah, where it reportedly already operates a Ramada under a franchise agreement. The Nairobi Ramada will also be a franchised operation with not more than 100 rooms, it was learned.

Several other international hotel giants are equally eyeing a presence in Nairobi, where in spite of the present downturn in tourism fortunes, future demand is seen as sustained after the discovery of significant oil deposits and being positioned as the main cargo entry and exit point via the port of Mombasa, the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport which is presently undergoing major expansion, and the fact that numerous international companies have chosen Nairobi as the location for their African headquarters.

This will be the first Ramada operation in Eastern and Central Africa, though the brand is present in North and West Africa with at least four hotels.

Meanwhile, the KHTF 2014 kicked off at 10 a.m. this morning to showcase over three days the variety of supplies now available locally in Kenya for the hotel and restaurant trade, to a large extent manufactured and produced in Kenya. Associated sectors like hospitality training institutions will also exhibit as it is in particular skilled and well-trained personnel which provides the soul of a hotel, over and above state of the art facilities, the latest in equipment, technology, and environmentally-friendly operating procedures.