Mombasa Hotel targets domestic clientele for Easter holidays

Plaza Beach Hotel General Manager, Mr Denis Gwaro. (Gideon Maundu, Standard).

Mombasa County boutique resort, Plaza Beach Hotel is gearing up for Easter festivals with its target market being domestic tourists.

Speaking to The Standard in Mombasa, Plaza Beach Hotel General Manager, Mr Denis Gwaro said that they are banking on renewed interests by locals to travel and hope to reap big from local occupancy in their hotel.

He said that they will be taking part in the annual Sarit Holiday Expo slated for March 27-March 31 in Nairobi to market their Easter Holiday packages and the year along offers that the 3-star facility has.

Apart from the local market which the GM stated always accounts for close to 60 per cent of its occupancies, the hotel has been recording a steady increase in tourists from the larger East Africa region including Ethiopia, Djibouti and South Sudan.

''We are heavy on online marketing and have developed a solid base with guests booking through the various online platforms. At the moment, we are also in discussion with low cost carrier Silverstone Air for airline/ hotel packages,'' he said.

He added that apart from guests arriving via air, they have also been recording increased visitors on weekends who use the Madaraka Express via the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR).

The GM said that already they are fine tuning the Easter Holiday programme to entice guests who will be staying with them over the Easter festivities.

''Our animation team is coming with an all-inclusive programme that caters for the entire family .We promise to give the best to all those who choose to stay with us during the Easter period,'' he said.

Other events that the hotel can hold include team building activities as well as host holidays for honeymooners where they have tailor made packages that the GM said are pocket friendly.

The GM said that they have added a fourth conference wing at their facility to cater for the mainly executive board meetings with a capacity of 10 delegates.

'' This additional facility is for the much smaller groups of upto 10 delegates .We have the other three conference halls with a combined capacity to take up to 130 conference delegates here at our hotel,'' the GM said.

He said that, however, they have not been able to attract more conference business this year from the month of January to March as compared to last year, same period.