Kisumu City shall be hosting an international conference, that will introduce Kenya to the world. Emerging details indicate that the Kisumu County leadership is already putting measures in place, ahead of the Africities conference scheduled for December 2021.
This comes after the realization that the city’s hotel accommodation capacity will not be able to match the number of visitors expected.
Currently, the city only has a bed capacity of 4,000 while the forum is expected to bring in about 10,000 guests from across the world, forcing the county leadership to get alternatives.
Consequently, Governor Anyang Nyongo’s leadership is already looking to have private citizens rent out their guest rooms to the visitors, and is also considering working with hotels from neighbouring counties.
“ We are currently meeting different stakeholders including investors in the hotel industry, and we want to give them a platform to tell us what they can do towards the achievement of success in this course,” the Governor said on Thursday.
The same was confirmed by visiting United Cities and Local Governments in Africa (UCLGA-Africa) Secretary General Jean Pierre Belong Mbassi who said that the county will have to work extra hard to make the event a success.
He spoke after meeting Nyongo at his offices in Kisumu City on Tuesday.
“We realised that the bulk of urbanisation is in the intermediary cities, and that is why we gave Kisumu the benefit of doubt to host the event. They, however, have to prepare adequately in order to prove wrong the doubting Thomases,” he said.