Hotel Businesses Boom in Kikoni: More than 10 new hotels established in six years

By: Marion Apio

Kikoni, a booming spot for hotel businesses, is a neighborhood to the West of Makerere University in Kampala, and its fast growing like the rest of the tourism industry in Uganda. The number of hotels in Kikoni – which was a slum just 20 years ago – has more than tripled in the past six years to cater for a rise in demand, according to hotel managers.

Hotels are a good business in Kikoni, as explained by several hotel managers around the area who are making more than half (above 50%) in profits from their initial investments. Hotels are often times occupied to full capacity by groups attending conferences or workshops and individuals seeking for accommodation, restaurant and Wi-Fi.

Bright Martine, a business development personnel at Grand Global Hotel in Kikoni, said the increased number of hotels in the area came from Kikoni’s central location in Kampalana.

“Kikoni is strategically located from the city. There is also Makerere University that is an academic institution, a center for research and has several projects that all utilize the services we offer,” Martine said.

Hotel owners have flocked to the area to capitalize on a business strategy of economies of scale, he said. This means that more hotels are moving to one location with high demand to provide a service that can then be produced on a larger scale with lower inputs.

There are many thriving NGOs around the area that utilize the various hotels’ services for workshops, conferences, catering services and accommodation, Martine added.

Mwanjje Henry Pascal, the manager at Hotel J-Frigh in Kikoni, said when he opened Hotel J-Frigh in 2013, “there was only Grand Global Hotel and Sheron Hotel. But now things have changed, and in six years over 10 hotels have been established like Nyumbani Hotel, Fortune Hotel, SS Hotel and Serene Hotel.”

Students, especially those at Makerere University who reside in Kikoni are a ready market for the services offered at the hotels, Mwanjje said. Much as the hostels are there, the hotels are offering various spaces for the students to host their birthday parties and dates, find accommodation, go to restaurants, and use Wi-Fi. J-Frigh employs about 37 students who part time so as to raise some money, according to Mwanjje.

Mary Nabirye, a second-year student of Development Economics at Makerere University, said if students want to have fun or hang out, the hotels are going-to places.

“With the services that come with the hotels, they are a good development in the area,” she said.

Myers Ndyabawe, a final year student of Journalism and Communication at Makerere, agreed that the rising number of hotels has improved overall services in the area especially for higher-quality restaurants and Nafubambi Road, that used to be so dusty and too muddy yet being used by students.

“The hotels come with improved road facilities, security and give students an opportunity to make a choice from where to spend their money from,” Ndyabawe said.

In the past, the Makerere-Kikoni neighborhood was a slum containing mainly semi-permanent structures, according to the chairman of the boda boda riders in the area, Paul Kiyingi. It is now mostly developed with not only students’ hostels but also churches, restaurants, supermarkets, and residential apartments.

However not everyone in Kikoni has directly benefited from the hotels as noted by GodFrey a boda boda rider in Kikoni. “They haven’t done much for us. We don’t have an assurance that we transport people to hotels. The jobs provided are for cleaners, security personnel and waitresses.” He noted.  

According to Africa-Uganda-Business-Travel-Guide, almost 80% of the accommodation of tourist standard is concentrated in and around Kampala, with 430 beds being distributed among the various up-country tourist zones. Initially, most of the hotel accommodation facilities in Uganda were under a government owned parastatal, Uganda Hotels Limited but all have been privatized.

Kikoni is now one of the many developing spaces harboring smaller but modern tourist accommodation facilities that have been set up to cope with the growing demand for cheaper but decent accommodation in Kampala.