- Bangkok-based hotel chain Dusit International has announced plans to open a hotel-serviced apartment in Westlands Nairobi in 2023 dubbed ‘Dusit Princes Hotel Residences’
- The upper-middle class property will comprise a hybrid of 56 one-bedroom and 30 studio apartments and 14 deluxe hotel rooms
- The opening of ‘Dusit Princes Hotel Residences’ comes after the closure of ‘DusitD2 Nairobi’ in 2021, a luxury hotel branch of Dusit International which was located at 14 Riverside Complex in Westlands
Dusit International says it plans to open a hotel-serviced apartment in Westlands Nairobi in 2023 dubbed ‘Dusit Princes Hotel Residences’, along Mimosa Lane off Church Road.
The Bangkok-based Thai Hotel and property development company said the upper-middle-class property will consist of a hybrid of 56 one-bedroom and 30 studio apartments and 14 deluxe hotel rooms.
Other facilities at the property will include an Italian-inspired restaurant dubbed ‘The Olive Restaurant’, a rooftop bar dubbed ‘The Aviary Lounge’, a heated swimming pool, a rooftop gym, and a 150-guest capacity theatre-styled meeting room.
The opening of ‘Dusit Princes Hotel Residences’ comes after the closure of ‘DusitD2 Nairobi’ in 2021, a luxury hotel branch of Dusit International which was located at 14 Riverside Complex in Westlands.
The closure of the hotel, which was opened in 2014, was occasioned by a terror attack on the 14 Riverside Complex in January 2019 and a prevailing COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, greatly hampering its business operations in the hospitality sector.
The decision is also part of an aggressive expansion move by the international hotel chain with plans to open 14 new hotels in the next three to four years, with a total estimation of 1,700 new rooms across seven countries worldwide.
Westlands continues to attract more international hospitality brands in Kenya evidenced by the new entry of Kwetu
Residences by Hilton Hotel in February 2023 and JW Marriot in Global Trade Centre (GTC) which will be opened in 2023.
Kenya’s hospitality sector performance improves thanks to international tourism
Experts from Cytonn Investments said the investment attraction in Westlands has been attributed to several factors, including the area’s close proximity to Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD) and other business nodes such as Kilimani and Upperhill.
It is also attributable to its direct access to and from Kenya’s main international airport, the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), via the Nairobi Expressway.
Westlands is also a strategic location within a vibrant commercial zone thus suitable for hospitality activities such as conferences and meetings.
There is also adequate infrastructure and social amenities such as the upgraded Waiyaki Way, Westgate Mall, Global Trade Centre and Kitisuru Road.
There is also the presence of numerous international embassies and multinational organisations which attract international visitors and expatriates and are key markets for the hospitality sector. Others are the German Embassy, United Nations regional offices, Microsoft, Google regional offices, PwC, Deloitte, Netherlands Embassy, and, HD Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.
Additionally, there is a presence of prime serviced apartments fetching higher rents and rental yields thus increasing investors’ confidence in the region.
Dusit’s decision to launch the project in Westlands comes when Kenya’s hospitality sector continues to showcase positive growth in its performance, development, and expansion activities.
The improvement has mainly been boosted by the increased international tourist arrivals into the country, conferences, leisure, and sports activities, following the continuous reopening of the country in the post-COVID period with the sector’s performance gearing towards pre-COVID levels.
According to the Kenya Tourism Research Institute’s Annual Tourism Sector Performance Report – 2022, Kenya registered a 70.5% increase in the number of international arrivals to 1,483,752 persons in 2022 compared to 870,465 persons in 2021.
The performance in 2022 represented a 72.4% recovery level compared to pre-COVID-19 levels of 2,048,834 persons in 2019, 7.4% points higher than the average global recovery rate compared to the same period.
Additionally, the number of both international and domestic bed occupancies grew by 38.4% to 5,726,609 beds in the period January to September 2022 from 4,138,821 beds in the same period in 2021.
This represented an 89.2% recovery rate against 2019, which recorded 6,416,730 occupied beds. On the other hand, room occupancy increased by 19.5% to 3,687,365 in 2022 from January to September from 3,084,957 in the same period in 2021, achieving a recovery rate of 89.9% against 2019 pre-COVID levels which recorded 4,101,150 rooms occupied.
