Kenya's Hotels and Safari Camps Go Local to Fill Manager Roles

The pandemic has brought many changes in Kenyan tourism — the most important of them being in its hospitality industry. More travel companies are hiring locals to run hotels and high-end safari camps instead of turning to executives from outside of the country.

That's a significant shift from many hospitality executives' long-held belief that workers from beyond Kenya's borders were better prepared to manage its hotels and safari camps. Those executives hired foreign staff because they wanted them to train local workers to reach their perceived higher standards.

But companies yet to fully recover from the pandemic are increasingly considering qualified local candidates, in large part because they wouldn't command hefty salaries.

"It's cheaper for the owner