South African hospitality group City Lodge has opened doors of its Two Rivers Mall hotel adding to Nairobi’s bed space and raising competition in the sector.
The international hotel chain said in a statement the first 40 rooms opened on January 15 while another 44 will be available by the beginning of February. It hopes to be fully open by the end of February.
“We are extremely excited about the prospects for this hotel, which is the biggest we have developed outside of South Africa,” said chief executive for City Lodge, Clifford Ross.
He added the hotel is situated in an important growth node of Nairobi and will complement the group’s other hotels and give impetus to its East African expansion programme.
This is the group’s third hotel in Kenya’s capital and its 59th in Southern and East Africa.
It also runs Nairobi’s Fairview Hotel and Town Lodge.
City Lodge has tapped veteran Kenyan hotelier Miriam Obegi, formerly assistant general manager at the Fairview Hotel as general manger.
Two Rivers is one of the largest mixed-use developments in the country and on completion will have offices, a hospital and residential houses in addition to the shopping mall that opened doors early last year.
City Lodge says the new property is part of its local and regional expansion plan. It is also developing the 147-room City Lodge Hotel Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which is expected to open in early part of 2018.
Competition for guests—including business travellers, conference participants and holidaymakers—is set to rise as analysts forecast more supply of rooms to hit the market in the medium term.
A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Hotel Outlook 2017, estimates that a total of 13 hotels are set to open in Kenya over the next five years, growing the bed space by over 2,400 rooms.
Source: Business Daily
