SERENA HOTELS LAUNCH #SERENACARAVAN TO SPUR DOMESTIC AND REGIONAL TRAVEL
(Posted 07th November 2015)
(Seen here are some of the participants in Serena Hotels’ inaugural #SerenaCaravan)
During a recent meeting at the Nairobi Serena Hotel with Serena’s Group Corporate Sales Manager Joyce Wangui, Retail Sales Manager Timothy Kitenge and Julie Pollman, the hotel group’s Marketing Coordinator, did news emerge that Serena was about to launch a new marketing initiative, aimed to draw in key social media influencers and bloggers to advance the concept of increased domestic and regional travel.
Several years ago did the Kenya Tourism Board in cooperation with the Kenya Wildlife Service launch a series of tours across Kenya, also using influential high profile Tweeps (for the un-initiated Tweeps are people who operate Twitter handles), Facebookers and bloggers when launching their #TembeaKenya initiative. While the KTB / KWS activities have since the initial hype gone quiet again has Serena now taken up the slack, cognizant of the fact that increasing numbers of East Africans, and expatriates living in the region, are now taking mini vacations not only in their own national parks but also across the borders. The Northern Corridor Integration Project countries of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda have made travel easy for citizens, no longer requiring passports while Expatriates can cross the national borders between the three with an ‘Interstate Pass’ which allows Visa and cost free entry.
With 12 properties in Kenya, 12 properties in Tanzania – which is not part of the NCIP group as yet – and two each in Uganda and Rwanda has Serena Hotels the widest portfolio of hotels, resorts and safari lodges and is ideally suited to offer both domestic and regional packages.
Yesterday morning did the first such #SerenaCaravan tours go underway, taking a group of Kenyan social media personalities and bloggers to Tanzania. Destination for two nights was the Lake Manyara Serena Lodge, which sits on the rim of the escarpment above the town of Mto Wa Mbu, where one branches off into the Lake Manyara National Park. The lodge offers some of the best views available across the national park below and the plains beyond and being located outside the national park are many outdoor activities on offer for guests when they return from their safari outing.
The participants of the tour have from the moment they met at the Nairobi Serena Hotel for an early morning briefing over breakfast taken their impressions on to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.
Julie explained in some detail at the meeting earlier in the week why they chose Lake Manyara for the inaugural trip, one major reason being an all tarmac connection from Nairobi, via the border in Namanga and Arusha to Lake Manyara, which allows individual travelers to use their saloon cars for such a trip without incurring added cost for airtickets for instance. The distance can be covered, border formalities included, in as little as five hours though stops in Arusha are of course an option to have an early lunch before continuing to Lake Manyara. For visitors with more time can the Lake Manyara Serena serve as a base for daytrips to both Tarangire National Park and into the Ngorongoro Crater, both locations also connected with tarmac roads.
The launch of Serena’s initiative almost coincides with the arrival of hundreds of delegates for the Africa Travel Association’s 40th annual congress which will be held in Nairobi next week and dozens of journalists writing for global travel publications. Among them is Juergen Thomas Steinmetz, Publisher and President of eTurboNews, who is one of the speakers at the event. The ATA Congress follows hot on the heels of the recently concluded Magical Kenya Travel Expo and both events no doubt give the country, and the region, a further publicity boost.
