Introduction

Madam Aluoch is an elderly retired lady. She shares her story of how she turned her home into an astonishing tourist facility. Her home gradually turned into:

• a steady source of income,
• what actively occupied her, and
• what helped her build essential relationships.

Let’s delve into it.

Her background

Having retired, she explored how to use what she had to survive, be occupied and engaged. Her home being in Mombasa, so she decided to convert it into a tourist facility. Using part of her retirement benefits, she remodeled her house and the rooms to make them suitable for tourists and visitors into the city and started to market them.

Her Experience

She believes that your personal interest and your house location are key foundations to such opportunity. The location should be in a town, village, or along a highway where tourists come and, preferably, where there is a shortage of hotel and motel rooms. Although there are many people who prefer a guest home to a regular hotel, even when the hotel rooms are available and fairly priced some prefer the homely environment. Using her house in the charming suburbs of Mombasa made a whole difference in her life.  

It was though not rosy at the start; she had no idea of how to run a hospitality facility. She initially failed to get guests but also did not know how to attend well to the few guests. She had to go for lessons, training sessions and had to visit other hotels to learn and try to apply what she would learn and observe. Over the years, she learnt how to welcome and talk to guests, to understand guest requirements, financial control, pricing and dealing with diverse people.

What makes her place unique

Her place is beautiful but believes that there are many more beautiful places in many parts of the world and not only does her rooms fill in the busy season. In fact her rooms are fully occupied most of the time. She also has receives and accommodates visitors from the local communities on a regular basis.

Her place is so popular that advertising is no longer necessary, but initially she used to run short ads in the resort sections of the newspapers, social media or internet. Most of her business is conducted on a reservation basis although people some-times pick up a motorist going through.

Her prices are never less than US$50 for a single, even out of season. In season, and in a popular resort, you will get as high as US$100 a night for a double. The charges are according to the part of the country and the area you are in, the season, and how well your rooms are made, the quality of service and the ambience of your home. 

Lessons learnt

1. She emphasises that running your home as a tourist facility taught her the importance of hospitality. The understanding of your guest needs, meeting their requirements with a welcoming environment and good customer service is essential.
2. Keeping and managing your facility neat and clean, managing maintenance and bookings are a must.
3. You need to promote and market your home as a tourist facility. You need to show your unique features, services, utilizing online platforms and effective marketing strategies.
4. Enhance financial management skills and experience from budget control, pricing, to business management. She emphasises financial skills and discipline as being critical to this business opportunity.
5. Effective communication and appreciation of diversity. Recognising that you will host guests from diverse backgrounds requires good communications skills but more importantly adapting quickly to various cultural and guest differences.