SERENA HOTELS PROFITS RISE BY NEARLY 20 PERCENT
TPS East Africa, the holding company owning Serena Hotels, has just announce a jump in profits for their financial year 2011 by 19.3 percent after revenues rose by nearly a billion Kenya Shillings to 5.46 billion from 2010s 4.48 billion Kenya Shillings. Indications are that a sound dividend will be declared again for shareholders, in the range of about 4 percent, which should give the share price a boost following a slow slide over the past 6 months, as worries over the tourism sectors performance made an impact on private and institutional investors. However, while 2012 is now generally seen as a year of consolidation, following records of arrivals and revenues in 2011, there remains the uncertainty over the elections dates in Kenya, which may be as late as first quarter of 2013 going by recent press reports on comments attributed to politicians. It is this doubt over the dates which also impacts presently on the forecast for the tourism industry and the economy at large. On the upside, the recent formal launch of the LAPSSET project in Lamu is expected to inject some level of growth, which will particularly benefit the Serena Hotel in Nairobi.
The group is present in four of the five East African Community member states with city hotels in Nairobi, Kampala, Kigali and Dar es Salaam, although there have been efforts by the government of Burundi to get East Africas best ruptured and arguably best run hospitality company to come into Bujumbura too.
The respective country circuits are completed by beach resorts in Mombasa and Zanzibar and a number of top rates lodges and tented camps in Kenya and Tanzania. It is understood that the construction of a new lodge outside the Parc de Volcanoes in Rwanda is soon to commence and that plans for at least two lodges in two of Ugandas main national parks are also still being pursued. Further South in Mozambique the hotel group owns and manages the Polana Serena Hotel, arguably the best in the capital Maputo.
Serenas Kenyan flagship property the Nairobi Serena will undergo a major transformation from later this year, when a new wing will be constructed, alongside a new car park while the present building is supposed to get another floor added. The existing rooms will according to reliable information be made bigger by converting three of the present rooms into two larger en suite rooms, similar as already done years ago on the ground floor with the much in demand Garden Suites each of which has its own little enclave of a private garden and a secure gate to the main gardens beyond. A recent visit to the Nairobi Serena Hotel also confirmed that the hotel remains in absolute ship shape, now under Daniel Kangu as General Manager, formerly serving as Deputy GM at the Kampala Serena Hotel.
