Return of peak season hands key lifeline to hotels

A sizable number of hotels and other hospitality establishments have begun returning back of life as the tourism sector reaches its traditional peak season.

In contrast to last year, most of these establishments can now re-open their doors to visitors as tours and travel rebounds albeit with continued concerns surrounding the stay of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the facilities marking the turnaround is the Fairmont Mara after taking a double-edged hit last year.

“Sadly the business came to a standstill when COVID-19 hit Kenya and the country went into lock-down with the closure of the airspace. A few weeks later, the lodge was hit by one of the worst flooding in the history of the Mara,” Fairmont Mara General Manager Mehdi Morad told Citizen Digital.

The reopening of the facility has coincided with the great wildebeest migration which runs through to October.

Despite the stay of the pandemic, the occupancy of establishments has been encouraging to the hospitality proprietors.

“I must admit we are positively surprised by the excitement and success of the reopening. As we speak, we already seeing occupancy rates as high as 75 per cent,” added Mr, Morad.

Nevertheless, Morad is cautiously optimistic of the sector’s tiding as the pandemic continues to a danger lying in plain sight.

“I wish the hospitality sector were turning a corner. Sadly this is not the case. The new variants seem to continue to pose challenges to global travel. An outlook on the next six months is sadly very hard to predict. As the school calendar resumes, we will definitely see less uptake from the local market, although we believe it is our role to create interest for more weekend visitors.”

More than half of Fairmont properties are now open with plans to re-open two other key properties in the chain after upgrades and other changes.

Meanwhile, the wider hospitality sector can expect to see a boost as international arrivals trend towards pre-pandemic levels on global travel resumption.

For instance data from the Tourism Research Institute (TRI) shows arrivals in the second quarter of 2021 were nearly 200 times greater than at the same stage last year.

United States have topped arrivals through the first six months of the year while June saw the highest number of arrivals this year at 61,608.