In yet another massive layoff, the Intercontinental Hotel in Kenya’s capital CBD has sacked all employees and ended its Kenya operations amid the coronavirus economic fallout.
The hotel’s general manager Oliver Geyer told employees in a notice the firm has declared all workers redundant and it would terminate its Nairobi hotel lease.
Kenya has lost Sh80 billion so far in tourism revenue, about half of last year’s total, due to the coronavirus crisis.
In a notice, Intercontinental Hotel revealed that it was already struggling before the pandemic outbreak and last year was declared technically insolvent since it could not service its debts that stood at Sh717 million.
“InterContinental Hotels Corporation Limited is for operational reasons, considering a permanent closure of the Intercontinental Nairobi and winding up all its operations in the Republic of Kenya,” read the notice.
The termination notice comes a few weeks after Norfolk closed its door in a similar fashion. In a memo to staff dated May 27, the country manager of Fairmont Norfolk, Mehdi Morad, announced that they had closed the Nairobi hotel together with another outlet in the Mara because reduced business in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic had made it difficult to meet employee pay demands.
The InterContinental Hotels Corporation has been running and managing the 389-room InterContinental Hotel Nairobi under a 99-year lease since April 1967.
