A new report by W-Hospitality Group on hotel development in Africa, Kenya ranks fifth among the top 10 countries surveyed, trailing only Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco and Ethiopia.
Kenya’s hospitality industry is poised to see substantial gains from investments by international hotel chains, including plans to open 25 new hotels that will contribute a total of 3,729 rooms. That marks a major improvement of 574 rooms over the 3,155 total rooms added in 2022 across 24 hotels.
In terms of cities, Greater Cairo, Sharm El-Sheikh and Addis Ababa have by far the largest development pipelines, with plans for 10,100, 5,159 and 4,508 rooms respectively. Nairobi, known as “The City Under the Sun,” ranked fifth out of the top ten countries sampled, with plans for a total of 3,161 new rooms.
With developers facing challenges including delays in imported materials and insufficient funding recently, it remains to be seen whether the room count will meet expectations, since last year only 30% of planned rooms actually opened.
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Abuja, Nigeria; Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Algiers, Algeria; Ain Sokhna, Egypt; and Accra, Ghana, ranked sixth through tenth respectively, with Accra recording the smallest pipeline at approximately 1,961 rooms.
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. emerged as the top hotel chain by number of planned hotels and rooms, with 28 properties in the pipeline expected to deliver 6,324 rooms total. It’s closely followed by Marriott International Inc., AccorHotels and Four Points by Sheraton, with pipelines of 4,305, 3,312 and 2,987 rooms respectively.
The room growth is projected to boost Kenya’s tourism to 10 million visitors by 2027. The developments come as the hospitality industry in Kenya recovers toward pre-pandemic levels.
The Tourism Research Institute said international arrivals hit 1.5 million in 2022, a 70.5% increase over 870,465 in 2021. Arrivals at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Mombasa’s Moi International Airport increased to 655,133 in the first seven months of 2022, compared to 630,191 in the same period last year.
