By Iminza Keboge
Published May 26, 2022
Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, has lost big on the closure of Hilton Hotel that has always been a delightful landmark. Darkness has replaced light as workers are fired, suppliers denied a market and the economy dealt a blow.
The closure of Nairobi Hilton Hotel comes hot on the heels of three other 5-star hotels–Hotel Intercontinental, Grand Regency Hotel and Norfolk Hotel–that have closed shop.
But just what could be causing the closure of these hotels?
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John Kioko, a curio dealer who chairs 1000-member strong Akamba Curio Dealers Association, blames the closure of hotels on what he terms as a hostile economic environment. The City Market-based Kioko who says he has been dealing in curios since 1987 says extremely high taxes and corruption are dealing the travel and tourism sector a blow.
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“Tourists are now opting to land in Tanzania instead of in Kenya because it is cheaper and convenient for them that way,” he says.”It is cheaper to stay in a Tanzanian hotel, fly to Kenyan national reserves during the day and return to Tanzania for the night than staying in a Kenyan hotel.”
Kioko says the avoidance of Kenyan hotels due to high costs by tourists is affecting Kenya’s economy adversely as transporters, hoteliers, tour guides and curio dealers are denied their livelihood.
“Does it surprise you that tourist hotels are being closed at a rapid rate?” crestfallen Kioko, standing in the entrance of his curio shop at City Market, poses rhetorically. “Corruption shall finish us all off.”
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Kioko says members of the association he leads are finding it difficult to pay bills.
“For 35 years this business has sustained me. I bought land, married and brought up a family from dealing in curios. But now, even meeting the daily needs is a challenge,” he says, looking away.
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While some people blame the closure of hotels on the emergence of the Airbnb phenomenon that has eaten big into the formal hotel industry, others blame the Government for having failed to create a business-friendly environment.
Any hiccups in the travel and tourism sector are felt across all other areas of the socio-economic sectors–agriculture, education, media, industrialization, transport, arts and crafts–of Kenya.
Indeed under no other administration have so many businesses, let alone 5-star hotels, collapse with such rapidity as has happened under Uhuru Kenyatta’s Presidency that is viewed as being inept and replete with corruption.
