Investors in real estate are awakening to realities of the growing hospitality sub sector in Kisumu and Siaya Counties, writes HAROLD AYODO
Until recently, getting worthy accommodation in the outskirts of Kisume and Siaya counties was a nightmare.
?Tourists who flew into the lakeside city to sample the vast western tourism circuit preferred traveling back to Kisumu town for the night.
?Recently, when opening Park View Safari Hotel in Kisumu, Prime Minister Raila Odinga decried the lack of a five star hotels in the area.
“Kisumu needs? major hotels and big bed capacity to tap into the booming tourism market,” Raila said.
The then Tourism Minister Najib Balala announced that the Government had set aside Sh500 million this year for the development of hotels in the region.
Balala further urged potential investors in the sub sector to apply for the loans from Kenya Tourist Development Corporation.
But now, the landscape is fast changing, as local investors are either constructing or renovating hotels and cottages in the outskirts of the lakeside city. ?A visit to Rock Resort, on the Kisumu-Busia road and barely ten minutes from the Kisumu International Airport depicts the new dawn.
?Rock Resort manager David Guya says the increasing number of visitors prompted the ongoing expansion of the facility.
?“Proximity to the newly renovated airport more than doubled our clientele and expansion is the way,” Guya says.
?According to the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), traffic through the facility has increased by 50 per cent.
The official figures show that over 540,000 passengers went through the airport in 2010 up from 360,000 recorded in 2009.
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