Hotels urged to cut rates in low season

Tourists leave Moi International Airport, Mombasa. Several hotels have been closed down at the Coast as the sector enters its low season leaving many without jobs.

What you need to know:

  • Hotels should realise that whenever they lost a chance to sell a room even at discounted rates that chance was lost.

Hoteliers have been urged to court domestic tourists with bargains instead of closing down hotels in this low season.

The chairman of the Kenya Association of Hotel Keepers and Caterers (KAHC) Mr Philip Chai said domestic tourism has been ignored and has contributed to the closure of many hotels in the wake of low flow of international tourists to the region.

“Reducing the rates by these hotels is the only way we can ensure that Kenyans sample what is on offer, rather than close them down for a whole three months," said Mr Chai.

He warned that the high rates charged on tourists generally and especially during the low season discouraged Kenyans from travelling locally.

Hotels, he said should realise that whenever they lost a chance to sell a room even at discounted rates that chance was lost forever and that affected general incomes at the hotel level as well as the economy of the region.

He called for the need for professional marketing of hotels to prospective Kenyan holiday makers to ensure that tourist class facilities were made available and at discounted rates.

Talking to the press in Malindi, the hoteliers called for formation of a special domestic tourism marketing board to specifically handle domestic tourism and encourage Kenyans to travel within their country and sample what was available in various tourist resorts.

KAHC asked the management of the hotels to offer discounted rates to Kenyan holiday makers and noted that the rates could still earn them profits and reduce the cost of refurbishing of hotels after a three month closure which affects a huge number of Hotels in Malindi, Watamu and Kilifi resorts.

Mr Godfrey Karume, a Malindi hotelier said that it was economically viable for hoteliers to offer rooms for accommodation alone instead of closing them as the practice “liked killing the economy”.