Swiss group offers two-year holiday bonds for Coast hotels

Swiss-owned Planhotel Hospitality Group is offering pre-paid products for its Coast-based properties where prospective guests pay 50 percent of the cost to reserve a room.

The offer ending Monday will see holiday-makers buy holiday bonds valid for two years for three properties — Diamonds Dream of Africa, Sandies Malindi Dream Garden and Sandies Tropical Village.

Planhotel Malindi general manager Alexander Zissimatos said revenue raised from the holiday bonds will be spent on operational costs as well as keeping the facilities open during downtime caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are training our 150 employees on World Health Organisation hotel standards for the planned re-opening in August and maintaining post-corona protocols which include a 24-hour vacated room turnaround programme,” he said.

Mr Zissimatos said food and beverage areas had been re-arranged to facilitate social distancing while buffet service has been stopped.

He said the holiday bond were transferrable, making it easier for holders to gift or sell them off with flexible booking dates. The developments follows government-initiated measures to flatten the Covid-19 pandemic curve.

PlanHotel owns and operates hotels in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Mozambique, Maldives, Switzerland and Italy.