122 PARTICIPANTS TAKE PART IN SERENA’S INAUGURAL #GOLFATTHELAKE
(Posted 01st November 2015)
122 invited guests, representing the Diplomatic Corps and Captains of Industry among others, were forming up on the 01st Tee from Friday morning 07.30 hrs until Saturday afternoon 14.00 hrs against the spectacular backdrop of Lake Victoria and several of its islands off shore.
Dubbed #GolfOnTheLake was it the course opening tournament for Uganda’s first championship course developed in decades, at last offering serious golfers the added attraction when they come to Eastern Africa to find a 5 star resort and a 5 star golf course in Uganda to enjoy their favourite game.
Golf tourism, big in particular in neighbouring Kenya, is a growing niche market waiting to be tapped into by the regional tourism marketers but it requires careful planning and the involvement of professional course designers and developers besides deep pockets to put a new golf resort on the market.
The narrow fairways, lined with water often on both sides, proved to be a challenge even for low handicap participants in the tournament and few returned to the clubhouse after playing their 18 holes without having lost at least one, in most cases quite a few and in some cases an entire box of balls.
Serena Hotels, Group CEO Mahmud Janmohamed had flown in for the event from the company’s headoffice in Nairobi, used the opportunity to promote both the resort and golfing in general and having brought RwandAir on board as a key sponsor, an airline flying from Entebbe twice a day to Nairobi and via Kigali into the entire region and beyond, were attractive prizes waiting to be won, including trips to Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali and as far as the Lake Kivu Serena Hotel. Packages will now go on sale from as low as US Dollars 185 per person in a single room, which includes breakfast, green fees, caddy fees and play for 9 holes while for another 10 US Dollars extra a full 18 holes can be played. A companion on such an outing will only cost a further US Dollars 25 extra, then also enjoying the use of the Maisha Spa and other facilities available at the resort.
Combined with even the regular airfares by RwandAir, will this no doubt become a hot selling deal, available every Friday and Saturday night until mid-December but when the airline launches their own packages the cost will come down even more.
(The ‘architects’ of the tournament, in the middle Serena Hotels CEO Mahmud Janmohamed, on his right Mr. Anthony Chege, Country Manager for Serena Hotels in Uganda and General Manager of the Kampala Serena Hotel and on the left Mr. Frankline Nyakundi, General Manager of the Lake Victoria Serena Golf Resort)
This correspondent used the opportunity to speak with Mr. Kartik Halai, CEO of the Pearl Development Group, which owns the resort – Serena Hotels manage the property for them. Kartik said the company was promoting the concept of 5 star living in a gated estate with all amenities available to the owners of condominiums, residences and villas. He confirmed that the development of the second nine holes of the championship course was on schedule, as were plans to create more ‘owned’ accommodation, where the buyers then only pay a monthly service charge and their utility bills but otherwise can enjoy this novel concept on Ugandan soil, right on the shores of Lake Victoria and not more than 30 minutes from the airport. The nearby Kajjansi airfield offers visitors the option to fly to the safari parks from there, again saving valuable time for those with little to spare and a helipad at the resort allows for helicopter transfers by air to and from the airport. The marina, next to the Clubhouse, offers yet more options for visitors from abroad, who if interested can board a yacht or lake cruiser at the Entebbe pier and transfer to the resort on the Lake Victoria waters.
Uganda’s tourism stakeholders are attending the World Travel Market and no doubt will seek to capitalize on this latest attraction to tell the world why they should visit Uganda, made easier by Lonely Planet once again lifting the Pearl of Africa into the ranks of the publication’s most favoured destinations.
From the high profile gorilla tracking and ‘regular’ big game safaris to white water rafting, mountain climbing, hikes across Uganda’s south west where a network of trails is now in place to pilgrimages to the Namugongo Martyrs Shrine and visits to the country’s kingdoms, Uganda offers a complete vacation experience. It brings together wildlife and nature based tourism combined with culture and history rarely found in such abundance in other places.
Less than thirty kilometres from the Kampala Central Business District and only 20 kilometres from the international airport is the new resort ideally located to serve as a base for visitors before they go on safari or when they return, to take in the natural beauty of the location described by an American visitor only identified as Bruce during a previous stay at the resort as ‘Awesome, AWESOME, just absolutely AWESOME’.
