MAJOR UPGRADE IN THE PIPELINE FOR DAR ES SALAAM SERENA HOTEL
(Posted 10th December 2014)
Christmas every year is a time of corporate giving, for social causes but also in terms of superb offers for their clients and it is no different at the Dar es Salaam Serena Hotel, though with a bit of a twist.
Of course will the hotel offer a superb spread for guests, starting from Christmas Eve over Christmas Day and Boxing Day and beyond to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, while in the run up to the festive season also remembering the less fortunate members of society, especially orphaned children who will be given a treat of their own as Serena will not only light up the Christmas trees but also the faces of these kids when they see Santa come calling.
The twist though for the Dar es Salaam Serena is that their own stocking has been filled with news of a major refurbishment being approved by the company, the first since Serena took over the hotels a few years ago.
The entire 240 rooms and suites will be modernized and upgraded with the latest technologies. The same applies to the meeting facilities and restaurants, making sure that when the work is completed in late 2015 the hotel will remain the group’s flagship in Tanzania, where another 9 hotels, resorts and safari lodges in the best locations across the national parks and game reserves, and of course in Zanzibar too, continue to delight visitors with their unique hospitality.
Competition in Dar es Salaam at the top level is intense and competitors do not rest to snap a the heels of the market leaders while new hotel groups, like recently announced here, are preparing to build and open their own versions of 5 star hospitality.
Serena’s pedigree though remains undisputed in the East African region, with a presence in four of the five capitals while further down south in Mozambique’s capital Maputo it is the grand ol’ dame of hotelkeeping, the legendary Polana Hotel, which continues to lead the pack.
Rahim Azad, the Dar es Salaam Serena’s General Manager, expressed a few days ago his confidence that once the refurbishment is completed the hotel has nothing to fear from competition as the location and facilities, apart from the attention to detail in service levels, will ensure that the hotel remains a firm crowd favourite in Tanzania’s commercial capital and main Indian Ocean port city.
The country itself remains in demand too as the discoveries of one of the world’s largest gas fields off the coast of Mtwara in Southern Tanzania has raised investor interest considerably, manifested also by the increase in flights to Dar es Salaam, where Air Seychelles has just commenced a twice weekly service while Emirates, after raising their flights from daily to 12 last month will from January 2015 fly double daily from Dubai.
Fly Dubai too has launched daily flights last month, offering excellent network connections from their hub to and from their extensive Middle East, India, Pakistan and Eastern Europe destinations and the arrival of Etihad also gives reason to believe that the withdrawal of British Airways was a major strategic mistake, leaving the Tanzanian market largely to Middle East carriers. Qatar Airways flies twice a day to Dar es Salaam and is said to be eyeing more frequencies, Turkish Airlines flies daily to Dar es Salaam and has another flight to Kilimanjaro continuing to Mombasa, while the only remaining European legacy carriers are KLM and Swiss, the former combining stops in Kilimanjaro and Dar while the latter flies via Nairobi.
Visa for most nationalities are granted on arrival at a cost of 50 US Dollars per person (Americans pay 100 US Dollars) without any problems and the expansion of the airport with a second major terminal will boost passenger capacity considerably when complete in 2016. Tanzania, Land of Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar, and of course so much more like the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, is certainly worth a visit.
