UGANDA: Kampala Serena Hotel***** Remodeled

The Kampala Serena Hotel is a hotel in Kampala, the capital and largest city of Uganda. The hotel is rated 5-star by the Uganda Tourism Board.

The hotel is on Kintu Road on Nakasero Hill, in the centre of Kampala. The hotel is nestled among 17 acres (6.9 ha) of lawns and gardens.

The hotel is close to the Kampala Sheraton Hotel, Imperial Royale Hotel and Mosa Courts Hotel.

It is in the Kampala Central Division, one of the five administrative divisions of the city.

The hotel opened on 31 July 2006, after eighteen months of renovations and refurbishment at a cost of US$30.5 million.

Kampala Serena Hotel is part of the Serena Hotels Group. It has 152 rooms, including thirteen suites, one of which is a presidential suite.

During the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2007 in Kampala, the hotel hosted Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom for four nights.

Kampala Serena Hotel has its own helipad for easy transport between the hotel and Entebbe International Airport.

Adjacent to the hotel is the Kampala Serena International Conference Center with a seating capacity of 1,500 and multilingual translation facilities of up to nine languages simultaneously.

A member of the global luxury hotel cooperation ‘The Leading Hotels of the World‘ has for long been Kampala’s top address when business and leisure travelers come to the Ugandan capital.

Food and service add to the architecture, the ambience and the room standards, second to none in Uganda, more so as the company is proactive with regular scheduled maintenance all over the property.

Last year 36 rooms and suites were added, including a senior Presidential Suite and the new rooms are larger and more opulent in their furnishings, meeting all the needs of a seasoned and discerning traveler.

More recently was the remodeling of The Pearl Restaurant completed including the launch of Uganda’s first champagne bar and the launch event, a French Food Week, provided the setting for Kampala’s number one Hotel.

On the same level of the hotel, the mezzanine floor, where previously two meeting rooms, Turaco and Crane were found, have four board rooms been added with a seating capacity of four, six and 10 respectively.

Named Shoebill, Kingfisher, Siskins and Jacana is the tradition upheld to give such facilities the names of some of Uganda’s most spectacular birds.

The corridors of the hotel too were refurbished, despite the length of the corridors never give the feeling of being monotonous, as, besides fresh flower arrangements are works of art being displayed like wall hangings, pictures but also sculptures.

This making the walk to and from one’s room an almost artistic experience reminiscent of walking the corridors of an art gallery.

Kampala Serena Hotel corridors give a feeling of warm welcome to guests who can enjoy plenty of art pieces on display.

An Executive Lounge was created, to which holders of qualifying Serena loyalty cards and guests booking suites or paying top rates for their rooms, will have access.

A complimentary breakfast, served on the 5th floor facility between 06.30 hrs and 10.00 hrs will make way for a light lunch set up before an evening Happy Hour with canapes and a full complimentary bar and drink service will round up the day.

Tea, coffee, soft drinks and juices will be available throughout the day and the latest newspapers and news magazines will help guest to pass their time.

Easy chairs and lounge chairs invite to sit down in comfort though regular tables too are available for those guests having breakfast or lunch.

The new lounge will be officially opened very soon giving regular guests of the Kampala Serena Hotel some great pleasure.

Victoria Hall will soon be closed, the main auditorium, which will see the current technology replaced with state of the art electronic systems, audio and video, and a new roll out / roll back seating system which allows users of the facility to have the spaces rightsized to their needs.

Additional work will at that stage also be carried out at the Kampala Serena Conference Centre’s other facilities to bring it truly in line with the main hotel’s appearance of today.

The residents’ lounge, Bambara, is now only accessible for guests using their key cards, making it truly an inhouse guest facility with patrons from the city, unless accompanied and signed in by a hotel resident, then restricted to the main restaurants, The Lakes and The Explorer and of course the Mist Bar and Terrace.



Tourism Observer

INDIA: Goa Spreads Its 'Wings' to Attract More Tourists

Home to 400 of India's 1,100-odd avian species, Goa, in a fresh initiative, is now banking on the birds in the hope it can spur the arrival of high-end tourists in the state.

Avi-tourism, according to Goa tourism ministry officials, will help the state attract high-end tourists through an inherent strength the tropical state always had, but never capitalized on.

"Goa accounts for 400 out of the 1,100-odd bird species in India. This is a fact which is not known to many. We are in the process of promoting birding as a tourism activity in order to attract high-spending tourists to the state. Avi-tourism is generally associated with family tourism, a concept Goa wants to promote," Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar told IANS.

Conventionally known as a beach tourism destination which attracts three million tourists every year, Goa's relatively unexplored hinterland is dotted by five wildlife sanctuaries and one bird sanctuary.

While beasts like the Great Indian Gaur, Royal Bengal Tiger, leopards, panthers, cheetals and blue bulls are already an attraction, the tourism department aims to add more focus to the areas by formally introducing the concept of birding.

For now, Goa has four Important Bird Areas (IBAs) identified by the global programme of the Bombay Natural History Society in tandem with Britain's Bird Life International - namely Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary, Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary and Carambolim Lake, in addition to the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary.

The tourism department, in association with the forest department, is also trying to include three more IBAs - Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary, Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary and Navelim wetlands in Bicholim - for those keen on avi-tourism.

"Goa has greater potential for avi-tourism than is currently being realized. Goa offers the perfect setting for ornithologists and bird-watchers, which would include fanatics for the highly specialized ones and those who are into it as a hobby," Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) chairman Nilesh Cabral said.

"Avi-tourism has attracted attention in recent years as an environmentally-friendly activity," he added.

The tourism department has already tied up with the Bird Institute of Goa, an autonomous society based in Panaji, to promote ornithological interest in the state. The combine will develop bird trails in Goa for tourists.

The GTDC has also resolved to rename 45 rooms at a tourist residency near Old Goa, a popular tourist site close to the Salim Ali bird sanctuary that it operates, after birds found in the area.

The months of October to February are the richest when it comes to avian diversity in Goa, especially on account of the wide range of migratory birds which flock to Goa's wetland hot spots - namely, the painted stork (mycteria leucocephala), asian openbill (anastomus oscitans), black stork, (ciconia nigra), woolly-necked stork (ciconia episcopus), white stork (ciconia) and the like.

The state's exotic avian list also includes the frog mouth bird, blue-eared kingfisher, collared kingfisher, Malabar grey hornbill, grey-headed bulbul, rufous babbler and the state bird - the flame-throated bulbul.

Goa Tourism's avi-tourism ambitions may also get a shot in the arm from the Konkan Railway corporation's plans to further develop the Carambolim Lake - known as a home for a wide variety of bird-life, including migratory birds - as a birding hub by planting more trees bearing fruits like mangos, almonds, cashewnuts and chikoos around and along the Karmali station, located alongside the lake.

The lake is home to bids like purple heron, gray heron, jacana, pintail, indian stork, cuckoo, waterfowl, egrets, moorhen, lesser whistling teal, shoveler, garganey, red-rumped swallow and the coot - and, in the recent past, even the pink flamingo.