Kenya Safari Lodges Earmarked for a Major Revamp
Kenya Safari Lodges and Hotels are set to undergo a facelift in a bid to restore their lost glory and also attract investors.
To put this into perspective is none other than the Chief Executive Officer.
“My name is Joseph Ndunda CEO of Kenya Safari Lodges and Hotels. Kenya Safari Lodges and Hotels has got three properties: Mombasa Beach Hotel at the Coast, in Nyali precisely and then we have Voi Safari Lodge, Which is in Tsavo East, just ten kilometres from Voi town inside the park and then we have Ngulia Safari Lodge Which is in Tsavo West about 50 km from Mtito KWS gate.
I joined Kenya Safari Lodges and Hotels two years and five months ago and that time the company was hit very hard one there was Covid and every business was affected during Covid. Two the mismanagement which had happened before and also the rejection where the facilities had not been supported and given some funding to do renovation Which affected the business so much. But am happy to say that with all the bad image and whatever was happening then, we are now on track. We have already turned around the facilities one Voi Safari Lodge and Ngulia Safari Lodges. The lodges were not doing very well but I can say even now as we are talking, they have even surpassed their annual budget in the month of May before even the end of the financial year which ends in June
The lodges were also not making profits but I can say now they are making profits.
I also would like to say that the major need for the facilities is renovation Which actually we are expecting funding which has been promised by the CS Tourism and it’s promising that we are going to get funding to do the renovation. We presented our budget and also to the Parliamentary Committee on Tourism and we are expecting a positive feedback from them so that we can do a complete turn around of the facilities one by making Mombasa Beach back to Four Star, and that we expect the works to start even this year, in the next financial year which starts next month, we expect now after the budget process we will be able to get the funding.
We are also expecting support from one of our biggest shareholders Kenya Development Corporation, in terms of also funding to do the renovation, but having said that we are expecting to do the refurbishment, we also want to make one of the lodges an Eco lodge. Ngulia Safari Lodge, which we are looking forward to get solar and turn the lodge green in every aspect because in the world today, everyone who is traveling, we are looking at the environment. How do we conserve the environment. Eco hotels and lodges are becoming more popular in the whole world because people are so much now concious about environment.
So that’s the direction we want to take, once we turn Ngulia Safari Lodge to a full eco lodge, we start now doing the others Voi and Mombasa. So Kenya Safari Lodges and Hotels is in the right path and I want to promise that with all what we have done, even without funding for the last two years we have managed to do a lot in terms of repairs and everything which was not done before. so my promise is that we are going back to the former glory of the Kenya Safari Lodges and Hotels.