High-end hotels have for the recent past been synonymous with big cities with most of them being located right inside the Central Business Districts.
However, there has been a sharp change in how investments in this sector play as investors adopt a new trend of investing in luxurious hotels outside the CBDs which are hyped to be ballooning with business potential.
Dave Karia, a Real Estate Manager at the Lake Estate Limited in Kisumu while speaking to a Hivisasa writer noted that hotels are opening shops far away from the CBD due to the excessive appreciation of land prices within various CBD’s.
He divulged that for one to purchase a 50 x 100 piece of land in the CBD, the investor will have to contend with high prices of between 80 to 100 million.
High land rates, he says have pushed hoteliers out of the town to far flung areas like Riat and Mamboleo where the price of land is relatively cheap.
According to Karia, the problem of land and space has also affected already established hotels singling out Kisumu’s Acacia and Imperial hotels which have very limited parking spaces.
“It has also compelled their buildings to be in storeys which make their construction very expensive as they have to be fitted with elevators,” he stated.
Currently, Karia says that tourists and even visitors on business trips prefer to have their meetups in hotels that are quiet and also places with less traffic which will definitely be out of town.
“Hotels such as Grand Royal Swiss in Riat, Royal City Gardens in Milimani, Polyview hotel and La Savanna near Robert Ouko residential units are likely to be preferred since they are located in quiet and less congested areas outside town,” Karia explained.