Malindi to have largest conference facility at Plan International Hotel

Malindi's Plan International Hotel General Manager Alex Zissimatos. [Maarufu Mohamed,Standard]

The touristic town of Malindi in Kilifi County is set to get an additional conference facility with a capacity to accomodate 500 people when an investor in hospitality industry opens the newly built conference hall early next year.

The project is being set up by Plan Group of Hotels International Kenya which has three resorts in Malindi town.

The three resorts are Sandies Tropical Village, Dream of Africa and New Dream Gardens Resort.

Currently the new conference center is in its final stages and is expected to help in the revival of thee tourism sector which had been heavily affected in the resort town.

It also one of the strategies aimed at developing of modern tourism products to diversify the market demands from the normal leisure and beach tourism to attract conference tourists who will now have space to flock in large numbers.

This is the first ever large scale conferencetourism facility coming up in Malindi which now seeks a share of the conference tourism that is fast catching up at the Kenyan Coast.

Mombasa based Pride Inn Beach Resort, Convention Centre and Spa is the largest single conference facility that can host upto 3000 people.

It recently hosted the 79th edition of the World Skal Congress which was held last month.

A spot check by The Standard yesterday at the new conference facility saw workers putting final touches on the property which is billed to be a game changer in the tourism industry.

According to Mr Alex Zissimatos, the Plan Hotels International General Manager, the conference will be the biggest in the resort town of Malindi.

''We will deploy state of the art equipment in the conference halls never seen before as we seek a pie of the ever potential conference tourism,'' Zissimatos said.

He said the facility will be ideal for conferencetourists who will be able to land at the MalindiInternational airport and access the resort in 15 minutes.

“Malindi tourism is improving, the county government and stakeholders are really working hard to revive the sector, the National government leading in the push to have the Malndi airport upgrade to international status as well as the County Government of Kilifi under Governor Amason Kingi ,’’ he said.

Early this year Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala challenged the investors to develop products that suits modern day travellers.

He said the investors should not wait for the government to implement some strategies and asked them to be innovative and creative to attract travellers.

“The people who will come from Kenya, Uganda or East Africa are the people with a new mentality need to see products that suits the modern client,’’ he said.

Plan Hotel International founder, Mr Franco Rosso said he would invest more in the tourism sector in Malindi which is his second home.