01/08/09, 23:56:02 UTC

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Boom for decorators as tourism picks up

bdafrica.com

The growth of the tourism gives an interior decorator and a designer big business.

Gloria Githinji is a kindergarten teacher turned interior decorator.

Coaxed by friends who loved her house décor, she has been at it for three years, concentrating on homes. Now she wants to move into hotels. As an avid traveller, she has noticed that the hotels are missing out on the interior décor. “Apart from the money, there is huge potential in giving hotels a serene atmosphere,” she says.

Mrs Githinji could not have chosen a better time. The tourism industry has been growing and by the end of this year, its earnings are expected to hit a record Sh60 billion.

This growth in the sector has outstretched bed capacity and more hotels are coming up with the established ones expanding. Serena, for instance, is planning to add two camps while Norfolk is already undergoing renovation.

This, to an interior decorator, points to the straight road to making a kill.

“The country has just come out of an economic slumber that saw many hotels downsize or close shop completely,” says Mr Ndegwa Wokabi, director of Design Corporate.

Mr Wokabi says most hotels are doing soft refurbishments like carpeting and upholstering the old furniture while others are doing major projects like re-designing bedrooms, bathrooms and restaurants.

He adds that the key refurbishments to interiors are aesthetics, maintenance, durability, comfort and cost and value for money.

And the growth of the tourism gives an interior decorator and a designer big business. Unfortunately, these two artists are always confused for the other.

An interior designer is a qualified professional while a decorator is someone with a good eye for colour, capitalising on furniture arrangement and using ornaments like pictures or crafts to bring life into a room, explains Mr Chris Payne of Interior IDEA.

“There are many interior designers, but very few interior decorators,” says Mr Payne.

Although, they do similar jobs, designers are in a better position to do bigger projects that involve tearing a room apart and using fabrics, carpets, tiles, bathroom fixtures, anything to transform the room to make it habitable.

Like Mrs Githinji, Mr Payne admits he fell into the job. With 12 years experience in the tourism industry as a graphic designer in his own advertising agency, his old clients started asking him to renovate or get involved in designing their exclusive lodges.

When what started like a hobby started to grow, the idea of starting a company visited Mr Payne and Interior IDEA was incorporated in January 2006 by Mr Payne and his two partners: Arvind Vohora and Emma Campbell.

This year, the team of eight people have done about six projects and currently getting more involved with their first major project — a hotel with 152 rooms at the Coast in addition to other eight projects lined up for completion in the coming year.

The company specialises in high-end and luxurious lodges.

According to Mr Payne, all the lodges they have done fetch the owners more than $350 (Sh22,750) a night, pointing to the facilities’ exclusivity .

Most of these lodges are marketed as eco-lodges and as eco-tourism carves a niche, such lodges will be renovated to cater for the growing visitor numbers.

According to Mr Wokabi, hotels have also started adding services “to better the health and relaxation of guests”.

He cites Serena in Nairobi, Whitesands and Leopard Beach at the Coast, which have put up spas that offer massages, saunas, pools and health snack bars.
For all these to work, it means more business for the interior designer.

But there is competition from South African interior designing and décor firms trying to penetrate the Kenyan market from Tanzania.
South Africa has been investing heavily in the neighbouring country in recent years .

The country’s tourism in concentrated in the north and many South African firms have built and renovated lodges there.

Interior IDEA has felt a bit of heat from that side of the border, but as Mr Vohora and Mr Payne say they cannot quite get the “East African look,” which they describe as eclectic, comfortable, and homely.

Each Kenyan lodge owner strives to look different while still maintaining the look and feel of “Welcome to the home of the Safari”.

Mr Wokabi says that some hotels do have faith in local firms while some will bring in their own designers, especially multinationals like Fairmont who own the Norfolk Hotel and Mt Kenya Safari Club.

But he is quick to add, that more and more hotels are using local designers and architects.

Although, hotels are renovating, they normally have tight budgets and working with such budgets to get a good interior with durable finishing is always a challenge since most of the materials are imported and the ones available are expensive like hard wood

“We are now experimenting with different kinds of woods like palm,” says Mr Vohora,

Despite the challenges, Mrs Githinji says she will start marketing her work in January 2008 to small hotels.

“When it comes to a hotel, the most important thing is not the food but how good the rooms are.”

 Printable Version  | published Nov 25, 2007