NOVOTEL BUJUMBURA TO BECOME A DOUBLETREE BY HILTON
News have been confirmed over the weekend that Burundi is finally set to get its very first international branded hotel group enter the hospitality market. The Novotel, presently a 3 star property, is being taken over by Hilton and will after a substantial revamp and upgrading become a Doubletree, one of Hiltons brands covering the 4 star sector. The International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank, will offer a loan facility of over 5 million US Dollars which will be used to transform the presently rather drab Novotel into a new look Doubletree Bujumbura can be proud of. The overall project cost however is thought to be substantially higher, requiring additional sources of finance to be raised by the owners of the hotel.
Hilton is also said to be in the process of having a hotel constructed in Kigali, which would see the chain expand, finally, beyond Nairobi where they have been active since the 1970s but had little success of spreading the brand into the wider region, apart from an equally long established hotel in Addis Ababa.
