This archive report was first published on 23 July 2019.
As the property market in Kenya continues to decline, wedding experts are urging property owners to consider a lucrative alternative: converting their assets into wedding venues.
According to Dr. Catherine Matsisa, a wedding expert, uncommercialized land and unoccupied luxury properties could earn between Sh100,000 to Sh300,000 a day when converted into wedding venues.
Speaking at the WIN Africa Mini-Summit at Two-Rivers Conferencing facility, Dr. Matsisa noted that luxury properties and uncommercialized land could tap into the 28,000 weddings held yearly in Kenya, with a median wedding budget of Sh3 million.
"When you own property that gets rented for occasions like weddings, your real estate investment can pay out some serious dividends over time," Dr. Matsisa said.
Property Consultant, Pam Golding's Sansi Dietz-D'Souza added that the opportunity to turn luxury properties into wedding venues would earn them the same amount as rental income in a day, rather than the 30-day period.
"If you are a property owner and you make a rental income of Sh300,000 per month and now you don’t have clients to rent, and a wedding opportunity surfaces for the same amount which you are going to earn for a day, which is a lucrative deal," Sansi Dietz-D'Souza said.
However, venue owners must comply with new by-laws by the city council and laws by the Tourism Regulatory Authority to control events planners on venues.
"The regulations should be observed by event suppliers, venue owners and event managers on the production and execution of events if they want to commercialize the venues to their advantage," said Kezy Mukiri, Partner at Mukiri Global Advocates.
