ENJOY ’50 SHADES OF VALENTINE’ AT THE VILLA ROSA KEMPINSKI IN NAIROBI
(Posted 05th February 2016)
If you are looking for the most expensive, the most extravagant and the most luxurious way to spend the Valentine’s weekend with your flame, look no further. The Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi, already in the regional news last year when it topped all of East Africa’s 2015 Valentine’s Day offers with a whopping 2.4 million Kenya Shillings for a night in their fabulous Presidential Suite – all trimmings included of course – has this year outdone itself.
Their 2016 Valentine’s package goes for the extraordinary sum of 5.4 million Kenya Shillings and – equivalent to about 165 million Uganda Shillings – could easily pay for a decent car or for a modest apartment.
Their theme ’50 Shades of Valentine’ is a textbook example of how creative marketing can put a property into the spotlight and the more outrageous the offer, and in this case the price is, the more likely that, like last year, it will be snapped up already in the early hours of the morning. Drawn from the film title ’50 Shades of Grey’- incidentally banned by most of East Africa’s ethics tsars at the time – does the ’50 Shades of Valentine’ clearly suggest what sort of a weekend this is going to be.
The two night Valentine’s Extravaganza kicks off with a limo pick up transfer to the Villa Rosa Kempinski, a red carpet VVIP welcome and the use of Nairobi’s largest Presidential Suite – it extends over 750 square metres on the top floor – which became world famous when President Obama stayed there during his July 2015 visit to Kenya.
The lovers will receive diamond jewelry, alone worth some 1.4 million Kenya Shillings as a gift from the hotel, no doubt a long term reminder for them whenever wearing it, of an extraordinary weekend. What else do those lucky two lovebirds get for that kind of money? A trip to the Maasai Mara by helicopter for a day of game viewing and a couples Spa session at the Olare Mara Kempinski before, after a sundowner in the park, flying back to the city for a candle lit six course dinner and including the finest champagne money can buy of course. Red roses by the hundreds, rose petals mapping out the path to the suite’s bedroom, scented candles in the massive bathroom of the suite and the attention of a dedicated team of staff from the hotel, all at the beck and call of the lovebirds, are of course also part of the package.
All over the East African region have since last year’s spectacular success of the Villa Rosa Kempinski’s 2015 offer hotels, resorts and safari lodges gone into copycat mode. However, copying such a success and reaping big from the marketing hype which this created, is not easy and the team at the Villa Rosa Kempinski has this year once again shown that the pretenders have a long way to go to match their skills in putting the best there is on the market for that special weekend.
Whoever the lucky lady is whose beau will spend such a fortune on her, she can count herself as East Africa’s Queen of Valentine. Of course, in today’s environment of equality, and I say this tongue in cheek, one cannot rule out that it might be a lady who will give her lover a gift of this kind and if so, we’d have a King of Valentine. Whoever is going to be the Queen or the King, the hotel will NOT part with the information who beat the other glitterati to the door, or rather to the cashier’s desk to pay and secure the deal. All we will hear, and no doubt very soon, is that East Africa’s most expensive weekend package has been sold and everyone else will have to settle for second and third best. Happy Valentine!
