LOST OPPORTUNITY FOR KIGALI HOTEL AS KEMPINSKI PULL OUT
(Posted 03rd March 2016)
Kempinski Hotels just minutes ago formally confirmed, what the rumour mill in Kigali already spun around for weeks, that their management contract with the Hotel Des Milles Collines will come to an end on the 31st of March.
Taken on several years ago was the MDC in view of its state of repair not a fully fledged Kempinski Hotel but launched as the Des Mille Collines by Kempinski, indicating that small but significant difference to those who understood this constellation.
Expectations were high among Kigaleans and visitors regularly using the MDC that a major refurbishment exercise would soon unfold, while service and food received a major overhaul through staff training and the presence of Kempinski chefs.
As time went by however so did the questions pile up when the exercise would finally start and sadly did one delay chase the next until clearly Kempinski ran out of patience and terminated their management deal.
Several leading Kempinski staffers had already left the hotel in Kigali over the past year and General Manager Christoph Strahm is presently working on a handover, it is understood, before also leaving Rwanda after the hotel has been returned to the owners at the end of the month.
This no doubt must be a bitter pill for the owners who, according to sources outside the hotel but knowledgeable about the going ons strung Kempinski along but in the end lacked the resources for a major overhaul and upgrade and had to accept a parting described as ‘amicable‘.
Considering that the Kigali Radisson Blu Hotel and Conference Centre will open by mid 2016, that the Marriott Kigali will come on line and that the Ramada Kigali is also due to open soon will the MDC, best known for its role as ‘Hotel Rwanda‘, see the top market segment be taken over by newcomers and of course the Kigali Serena Hotel, which has been top dog in Kigali since they took over the former Kigali InterContinental Hotel. Locally owned hotels, several of them newer and arguably of better standards, will no doubt fill the gap left by the withdrawal of Kempinski.
This leaves at present only the Villa Rosa Kempinski – arguably Nairobi’s best city hotel – and the Olare Mara Kempinski Tented Camp in the Masai Mara remaining in East Africa, with the next closest Kempinski found in Djibouti.
It is understood that the hotel group is keen to expand their East African footprint. However, only time can tell how successful one of the world’s oldest luxury hotel brands will be to expand in the region where literally all luxury global hotel brands are now jostling for hotel management deals.
Watch this space for breaking and regular news from the hospitality industry across the region.
