The Laico brand is a big name in Africa. With an extensive portfolio throughout the continent, it offers more than 3,000 rooms in 14 hotels, providing consistently high levels of service in key destinations.
The group has been slowly and steadily expanding over the last few years, even through the global credit crisis.
However, while other chain expansions can represent unique venues being swallowed into a homogenous mass, Laico are keen for their hotels to be distinct from each other, retaining a large part of their local traditions. “Business travellers will come to a Laico hotel and recognise the brand, the uniform, the stationery,” says marketing manager Renaud Bachoffner, “but each hotel still retains its own personality.”
So their Lake Victoria Hotel in Entebbe is a British colonial style destination, the Djerba Hotel in Tunisia reproduces all the charm of local Mediterranean architecture, and the Laico Bahari Beach in Dar Es Salaam Tanzania, the brand’s latest opening, offers luxuriously furbished rooms in traditional thatched beach houses, mere seconds from the Indian Ocean.
“Imagine a hard day working in the hot city centre,” says Mr Bachoffner. “After a short drive, you enter your cottage, take your suit off, and only steps away from your room, dive into the ocean.”
“It’s a unique feeling,” he says: “you’ve just washed your busy day stress away.”
Set in a lush and colourful garden, featuring palms, tropical flowering shrubs and bright bougainvillea, the hotel is influenced by old Swahili architecture, built in traditional style from coral blocks and palm frond thatched roofs. All of the 92 bedrooms and four suites face the ocean; they are individually air conditioned and elegantly styled and furnished with local fabrics in traditional colours. Every room has a spacious terrace or balcony accessed through wide glass doors.
Exceptional conference and meeting facilities are at the core of Laico’s offering to visitors, and the new opening is no exception, featuring a brand new conference centre seating up to 600 people in four technologically equipped meeting rooms. The country’s unique landscape and the hotel’s individual design makes it a fantastic destination for MICE visits, whether they be to take advantage of the nearby national parks offering excellent safari opportunities, or simply enjoy the professional facilities of the hotel with a well deserved cocktail and delicious dinner under the tropical stars.
Tel : + 255 22 265 0708; www.laicohotels.com; reservations@laico-baharibeach.com
