More water for coastal beach resorts delights hoteliers

COAST HOTELS SET TO GET MORE WATER

It was learned overnight that the Coast Water and Services Board has now started to pump a further 35 million litres of water a day to the coast, stretching from Malindi to the Mombasa, a significant increase in capacity, which now stands at 155 million litres a day overall. This represents an increase of about thirty percent, from previously only 120 million litres.

Regular and sufficient water supplies are crucial to the tourism industry at the coast, with its hot and humid climate and periodic rationing in the past left tourists dissatisfied and hotels struggling to get water with tankers after the pipes had gone dry.

A major work programme, which started in 2010 and was financed by the World Bank and the French government, worth 7 billion Kenya Shillings, has now come to its conclusion, after rehabilitating sections of the pipeline from the Mzima Springs pumping station inside Tsavo West National Park. Additionally were a number of borehole pumps overhauled or exchanged, improving the ‘production’ considerably. The Baricho water works too had its capacity upgraded and facilities refurbished, bringing relief, at least for some time, to consumers along the Kenya coast.

A regular contributor from Mombasa had this to say: ‘It is one of our sector’s main demands to government, to provide enough water. Hotels and resorts need water in this climate. Together with electricity it is crucial to provide a good holiday experience to visitors. The announcement by the water company was timely. What we still need are better roads and a cleaner Mombasa. Traffic jams in and out of Mombasa have become a problem. So while we can tick off one issue from our agenda, other issues remain just as urgent for government to tackle’.

The same source also confirmed that coast arrivals are compared to a year ago down by over 20 percent, posing a challenge to coast resorts to explore new markets, not just from overseas but the wider region and in particular from the domestic market.