The never ending woes of what was to become the Kampala Hilton Hotel

HILTON MANAGERS LEAVE KAMPALA IN HASTE AS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE HOTEL’S OWNERS REPORTEDLY BREAKS DOWN

(Posted 21st January 2016)

Full mouthed utterances bare of any sense of reality have been the hallmark of the owners of the so called Kampala Hilton Hotel, of late in hospitality trade circles referred to as the ‘Kampala WHAT Hotel’.

A quick look into the WordPress site of the owners for the hotel shows why that is so:

Start quote:

Kampala, Uganda’s capital has a whole host of Hotels, from 4-stars to the very ordinary – call them star-less (if the word actually exists). However many of these have often times been seen masquerading or tending to refer to themselves as five star facilities reaping even bigger from the unsuspecting Ugandans as well as visitors especially tourists. Well, this may sound odd in ears of many, but, the honest truth is that Kampala apparently has only one 5-Star Hotel – Serena – whose days of monopoly are actually numbered, with the establishment and subsequent opening of the Hilton Kampala Hotel come early 2013.

Hilton Hotel Kampala will be Uganda’s first “true” 5-star hotel and a stunning architectural landmark.
The project will have 32,000m² of floor area, 272 rooms across 23-floors and majestic fixtures and recreational facilities. Uganda will be the second country to have a Hilton brand in East and Central Africa after Kenya.

End quote

Serena Hotels will no doubt have had a good laugh at the pretenders while citing the Nairobi Hilton in their amateurish WordPress write up is in trade circles seen as another major faux pas. That hotel’s TripAdvisor ratings show 67 Terrible, 130 Poor and 248 Average guest comments, which can only be described as an utter disgrace for the once highly rated name Hilton. However, this is in fact entirely in line with this correspondent’s own experience when last staying at the Hilton in Nairobi and as expressed in his own TripAdvisor review [www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g294207-d301993-r169549683-Hilton_Nairobi-Nairobi.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT] The current responses from the General Manager still talk of an upcoming master plan re-development, the same broken record already played three years ago with no action taken, a reflection of what the name Hilton in Kenya today stands for and equally of course a reflection on their association with the Kampala property.

The owners of the Kampala hotel got the site ahead of the 2007 Commonwealth Summit from the Ugandan government under the expectation and against the undertaking that the hotel would be ready by November 2007 and – again in the usual full mouthed fashion – had the owners promised Ugandans that they would construct one floor a week to have the hotel ready.

Several announcements later that the hotel would finally open also passed with broken promises and the above WordPress notification of an opening in early 2013, THREE YEARS AGO, also passed without results.

No wonder did the owners gain notoriety among the local hospitality industry and it is understood that words of caution were given to Hilton to think hard over their association with such unreliable characters whose road into the hospitality industry remains littered with empty promises and unjustified grand standing.

It is now understood from reliable sources that the team Hilton had sent to Kampala, has left the country in haste, with one individual reportedly escorted to the airport by a friend from one of the foreign missions to Uganda, apparently worried about his safety. Major disagreements with the owners were cited though none of those who left the country were willing to go into specifics.

Going by additional information received is it now clear that the hotel will most likely not bear the name Hilton and by the look of it, and comments sourced from Kampala hoteliers, it is unlikely that any other global hotel management company of repute will anytime soon put up with the owners erratic approach to finishing the hotel and how it should be managed before, on and after opening.

Questions are also now being asked among local hospitality operators about a reported loan to finish the hotel, which, with Hilton out of the picture at this moment in time seems unlikely to be disbursed to the people who arguably have presided over the longest construction time for a hotel since its ground breaking in 2006 and still, apart from the building itself, have nothing to show for in terms of operational readiness ten years later.

Notably has Hilton not responded to two emails, one of eleven days ago when the situation in Kampala became dicey and another of last night, suggesting that the company is either still wiping egg from their faces or else feels they are simply not ready to talk about the abrupt end of their relationship with the owners in Kampala.

For regular and breaking news from Eastern Africa’s hospitality industry look no further but this space.