Uganda hospitality news update – James Rattos promoted to Sales and Marketing Director

SHERATON KAMPALA HOTEL GETS NEW SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR

James Rattos, long serving staff member and until very recently the hotel’s Food and Beverage Manager, has moved to take over the sales and marketing department, undoubtedly much to the relief of the Sheraton’s clientele, the sales staff and not the least this correspondent, who enjoys very cordial ties with James.

A past president of Skal International’s Kampala chapter, James is known as a dedicated ‘bee’ and everything he has done over the past decade at the hotel, since coming from Kenya, has been judged most favourably by clients and senior management, a rank he now joined with his latest promotion.

While discussing a range of innovations at the hotel it was also revealed that the business performance of the hotel, in both F&B and room sales, was ahead of forecasts and the outlook for 2011 remained positive.

The new roofed main entrance gate of the Sheraton, inaugurated on the dot of New Year, has made the arrival into the hotel much more classy and certainly more welcoming, but more substantive improvements to the outdoor grill restaurant, the main lunch and dinner venue, too has made an impact on visitors. The new raised roof and the sliding windows which keep the rain out and diners dry, has together with the new enlarged kitchen transformed the place already, tempting enough in any case to accept a long pending and very overdue acceptance of an invitation for dinner one of these days.

For visitors on business or pleasure, the Sheraton Kampala Hotel remains a favourite, for its location but also for its service and food and not to forget the crowd pulling evening programmes at the main bar especially during the daily ‘happy hour.

Visit www.sheraton.com/kampala for more information.

Uganda news update – Current situation report on Nile river accident

NILE RIVER ACCIDENT RESCUE MISSION NOW MOVING TOWARDS RECOVERY PHASE

The latest information from Chobe Safari Lodge indicates that the wreckage of the stricken, and only recently imported river boat, has been spotted and is due to be recovered and brought back to the lodge to also provide clues and evidence in the unfolding enquiry into the tragic accident.

Sadly though, by late this morning no news of any further survivors have been received inspite of an ongoing search operation by a combined UPDF, UWA ranger and lodge staff force, supplemented by chartered aircraft searching the entire length of the river time and again between Chobe and the Murchisons Falls, as well as below the falls.

While there is still some remaining hope, it has however dwindled considerable and by the end of today the search and rescue mission is likely to turn into a recovery mission, as two of the stricken boat’s passengers are still missing. Our all prayers are with their families and friends, who remain in deep distress and have requested that the names of those missing – known to this correspondent – be withheld until certainty of their fate has been established.

A source close to the lodge has also confirmed that they will leave no stone unturned to find the two missing individuals regardless of the time needed or the cost involved.

Uganda breaking news story – Madhvani Group takes over The Ark and The Aberdare Country Club in Kenya

MARASA COMPLETES TAKEOVER OF ‘THE ARK’ AND ‘ABERDARE COUNTRY CLUB’

Information here alluded to some months ago already has now finally been confirmed, which was bringing two prime Kenya properties into the fold of the Madhvani Group.

Following their acquisition last year of a tented safari camp in the Masai Mara, Marasa has indeed taken advantage of Fairmont Kenya Hotels wishing to scale back their presence in the Kenyan market by taking over the famous tree-hotel ‘The Ark’ inside the Aberdare National Park, which came in a package together with the base hotel ‘The Aberdare Country Club’ – a fine property near Mweiga, outside Nyeri in the central highlands, complete with its own 9 hole golf course. The club is also sporting a heated swimming pool – a necessity considering the elevation of the club – which is supplemented by a squash court and tennis courts for visitors keen to exercise their favourite sport.

More ‘down to earth’ than its erstwhile ‘noble cousin, the Mount Kenya Safari Club’ in Nanyuki which remains in the Fairmont portfolio, the Aberdare Country Club has long been one of this correspondent’s personal favourites in Kenya, as it offers nearly as many facilities as its more illustrious and better known ‘rival’ but also permits more casual house rules.

Marasa has already committed to a forthcoming refurbishment of the two added Kenyan properties, which now makes it the most successful and wide spread Ugandan hospitality business on the market. The company also confirmed that they are intent to add more properties to their Kenyan circuit in due course to establish a presence in other key tourism areas across Kenya, including the coast.

It is understood that the Kenyan government is also in the process of expanding and upgrading the airfield in nearby Mweiga, where visitors can take to the skies in gliders, or else take a ‘proper’ sightseeing flight across the central Kenyan plains and the Aberdare mountains.

Well done Marasa for doing Uganda proud and ‘reversing the trend’ by venturing into Kenya.

 

Uganda breaking news story – Ministry of Tourism to be split off from Trade and Industry

TOURISM TO BE SEPARATED FROM TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Long standing demands by the tourism industry to revert to a standalone ministry dedicated to tourism and related areas finally seem to have fallen on fertile ears, as news are firming up that the new cabinet in the making will once again, the first time since the late 90’s have a Minister of Tourism with cabinet ranking, freed from the cumbersome set up of in-house competition with the departments of trade and industry.

If this is a pointer that the powers that be have finally understood the importance of the tourism sector, and its huge potential for job creation, direct foreign investment and domestic investment, foreign exchange earnings and generally the opportunity to generate goodwill towards Uganda abroad, will remain to be seen. The forthcoming budget will undoubtedly give more concrete information just how well, or how badly, the new ministry will be facilitated and how much direct funding the Uganda Tourist Board will get, to finally get at least at level par with neighbours Rwanda and Kenya, which spend substantially more public sector money in promoting their destination overseas, and with enviable success one should add.

If controversial current tourism minister Hon. Kahinda Otafiire will remain in the portfolio, or be shifted to another position, remains to be seen, but there is hope that the recent series of gaffes by the minister may be reason enough to shift him to a less sensitive ministry where swiftly made and later much regretted utterances cannot do as much harm as it has done for the vital tourism industry.

With the anticipated split of tourism into a separate ministry the plans of a massive 60 storey trade centre at the site of the Uganda Museum may also be revisited and while the tourism ministry deserves its own building it may rather be of a smaller and more adequate and appropriate size and a different location after all.

Watch this space as the breaking news of pending cabinet appointments and ministry line up are due to be announced very soon now.

Rwanda news update – Gadaffi’s ‘RwandaTel’ now to be wound up

RWANDATEL WINDING UP ORDER FILED

The Rwandan government rarely does anything with half measures, and following the story last week that they have cancelled the mobile license of erstwhile national phone operator RwandaTel, leaving them with the scraps of a small fixed network, the next step was taken yesterday. Majority owned by Libya’s dictator Gadaffi, or else the network of companies created by him to actually control the country’s wealth, RwandaTel was served with a winding up petition from the registrar of companies, which is now before court. The official cited ‘technical insolvency’ as a major factor in their application to have the company wound up and struck off the register, ‘to protect the public and government’.

Libya, after acquiring telecoms interests in Africa, did hardly live up to the high expectations they created when doing the initial deals, and injection of capital soon gave way to living on a shoestring budget for most of these companies, having to rely on cash flow and commercial borrowing rather than shareholder’s funds.

Adding insult to injury comes to mind, and a slap in the face of the obstinate Libyan regime leaders it is in the process, as his ill gotten wealth across  the continent is now largely being frozen, or as is the case here, rendered worthless. Way to go Rwanda.

Meanwhile are friends and business associates for Rwandan companies advised once again to check on their latest phone numbers, while a mass migration from RwandaTel mobile numbers to operators TIGO and MTN is taking place right now – reportedly well over 500.000 subscribers needing to find a new ‘home’ for their phones.

New bids are expected to be invited by Rwanda shortly for a third national phone operator to step into the gap now left by the events surrounding RwandaTel.

Tanzania conservation news update – Controversy continues over Tanzania’s hunting block allocations

DECISIONS STILL PENDING ON 156 HUNTING BLOCKS

Information was received from Dar es Salaam overnight that after the 12^th March application deadline, awards for as many as 156 hunting blocks / concessions for the period 2013 to 2018 are still undecided.

The minister for natural resources and tourism conceded this point apparently in parliament on Tuesday, saying that his ministry’s officials will take the entire 60 day period stipulated in law to assess applications and decide on whom to award any concession. It was also learned that present legislation demands that each hunting company allocates at least 25 percent to ‘locals’ and it was here in particular that a regular source from Dar took issue with: ‘this is a recipe for corruption and deal making. The foreign owned hunting companies should tell the Tanzanian public how they find ‘partners’ or if they are not really bullied by politicians and well connected individuals who ‘help them’ to get concessions and in turn then get free shares to comply with the law. There are a lot of unanswered questions about this and the beneficiaries should be made public, let the names go to the media for everyone to know.’

Controversies over hunting in general and the revenues generated in particular in recent years brought the sector into disrepute of late, and pending allegations over malpractices by in particular Middle Eastern hunting block owners of shooting their blocks empty and then lay fires to drive game back into the hunting area, have never been disproven and are a festering sore on the reputation of hunting companies.

Aviation news update – AFRAA demands greater government controls

AFRAA DEMANDS BETTER CONTROLS OVER ACCESS OF FOREIGN AIRLINES

The African Airline Association has renewed calls to African government to be more careful when entering into open skies agreements and granting foreign airlines traffic rights, including 5^th freedom rights. The Nairobi based organization demanded that African governments promote closer cooperation between their own airlines, which were struggling with undercapitalization and old equipment, while foreign carriers – ostensibly meant towards the Gulf based carriers – were largely state enterprises with almost open ended credit lines by their political masters. AFRAA has for long advocated to strengthen African airlines and work more closely together in all aspects of operations, including maintenance, purchasing and training. Said one regular aviation source in Nairobi about the topic put to him: ‘There are a handful of airlines in Africa which have made a success. Kenya Airways, Ethiopian, South African are the first to come to mind and Egypt Air will overcome their present challenges without doubt. Then there is Royal Air Maroc which also is making an impact but on the downside airlines in West Africa, since the demise of Air Afrique, have struggled. Now those which are successful are nevertheless victims of their own government’s generosity towards those Gulf airlines which are now flying across Africa. They take traffic from African airlines by means which are not properly controlled and regulated. ET, KQ and SAA should look at cooperation but belonging to different global airline alliances has not made that task easier. They compete against each other but sometimes it seems they are more looking at each other than the external threats to their survival. I think AFRAA’s initiative, recurrent as it is, must be supported. Still, considering the cut throat situation here in Kenya on the domestic routes, will our African airlines ever learn that together they are stronger than individually?’

In closing does this correspondent ask: will African airlines, apart from a handful of success stories, become mere niche carriers to feed / de-feed for the big league global giants and what impact will this have on the aviation development of the continent, where the absence of road and rail infrastructure in many countries still makes air transport the only viable way to go places, domestically and continentally.

Watch this space.

Uganda conservation news update – Mt. Elgon park boundaries ‘safe for now’

GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS TO HALT FOREST GIVEAWAY DIRECTIVE

The recent news that president Museveni had issued a directive to carve out land from the Mt. Elgon National Park to resettle several hundred families has hit a near dead end, when it became known that a group of experts, constituted by the Prime Minister’s Office, had spoken out strongly against it.

It would appear that this saga is dating back into the early 1980’s when land set aside from the then National Forest Reserve was given to influential politicians and business people, and a second such exercise again left the beneficiaries with naught and those in power with all.

It was rightly pointed out that the re-demarcation of the park was done just a few years ago, after long and protracted consultations with neighbouring communities and that it would take an act of parliament to revise the park boundaries, not likely however to muster the required majority.

Mt. Elgon is a crucial water tower for Eastern Uganda and illegal logging is already having an influence on previously permanent streams turning into seasonal water veins, while illegal land occupation and poor farming methods have increased the risk of further catastrophic landslides. A fissure of over a foot wide has in recent months opened up along a stretch of over 40 kilometres inside the park, after a section of the forest was illegally cleared, and with water retention now compromised the soil of a lower layer is now said to gradually liquefy and act almost like soap, causing the upper layer to slowly begin to slide off over a wide area.

Notably, again it is politicians aiming at garnering support by promising land who have triggered the latest round of demands for carving up the park, but this time at least brought to a halt when existing government policies prevailed – for now that is.