SERENA HOTELS ISSUE PROFIT WARNING AS ARRIVAL NUMBERS BEGIN TO CLIMB AGAIN
(Posted 22nd December 2015)
TPS Eastern Africa, trading as Serena Hotels, has issued the mandatory profit warning as required under the rules of the Nairobi Stock Exchange, where the company is quoted. East Africa’s leading hotel group expects a drop of about 69 million Kenya Shillings in profits from last year’s 274 million Kenya Shillings, following a continued downturn of visitor arrivals for most of the year 2015.
While the group’s properties in Rwanda and Uganda are reportedly doing financially better have in particular Kenya, but also Tanzania, where Serena owns and operates 10 properties, seen mixed fortunes. Both countries were hit hard earlier in the year over the Ebola outbreak panic, which the international media through irresponsible and uninformed reporting portrayed to be close to East Africa, when in fact the hotspots were nearer to Europe than to East Africa. Kenya suffered also from harsh anti travel advisories which have however of late been either lifted or substantially moderated, once again paving the way for more visitors to come to the Kenya coast.
In fact has the downward trend bottomed out in September and for October this year were for the first time in three years rising visitor arrival numbers recorded once again in both Nairobi and Mombasa, up compared to 2014 by some 23 percent.
A continued recovery will no doubt also aid Serena’s return to greater profitability, though it must be said that the company, unlike many other hospitality businesses in Kenya, continued to write black bottom line figures. Notably did Serena, again unlike many other hotel groups, not lay off staff nor cut their basic remuneration packages, one reason why the company continuously ranks among the top corporate entities when it comes to staff retention and labour market interest to join the company’s ranks and file.
A few months ago did Serena and PROPARCO, the French development bank, sign a 20 million US Dollars loan deal which will be used to, among other properties, refurbish the Dar es Salaam Serena Hotel, a process which started on the 01st of December. The Kampala Serena Hotel too will see an additional Presidential Suite and more rooms added while also getting additional conference and banqueting facilities due to sustained high demand.
This correspondent visited and inspected12 out of 24 of Serena’s properties in Eastern Africa during the year, allowing standards comparison with many other hotels and being able to attest to the quality of service, food and upkeep.
