This archive report was first published on 5 August 2020.
On August 5, 2020, the InterContinental Hotel in Nairobi marked the end of an era as it ceased operations and laid off all employees due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The hotel's general manager, Oliver Geyer, informed employees in a notice that the company had declared all workers redundant and would terminate its Nairobi hotel lease.
Kenya has suffered significant losses in tourism revenue, with a total of Sh80 billion lost so far, roughly half of last year's total.
InterContinental Hotel was already struggling financially before the pandemic outbreak, with debts amounting to Sh717 million and being declared technically insolvent in 2019.
According to the notice, InterContinental Hotels Corporation Limited would be permanently closing the Intercontinental Nairobi and winding up all its operations in Kenya for operational reasons.
The hotel, which has been in operation since April 1967 under a 99-year lease, is owned by Intercontinental Hotels Corporation Ltd and the Kenya government, each holding a 33.83% stake in Kenya Hotel Properties (KHP), the holding company that owns InterCon.
The termination of the lease means that KHP would seek another operator to manage the strategically located five-star hotel.
This move comes on the heels of Norfolk's closure, which was initially sparked by the coronavirus pandemic but later retracted after employees threatened legal action.
