In addition to day-to-day sales, marketing and PR activity that we carry out for our clients, Ethos Marketing also arranges educationals. Our most recent educational was to visit some of the Serena properties in Kenya.
Serena is constantly upgrading and developing their hotels, lodges and resorts, so it is important for the Ethos Marketing staff to stay up-to-date and it is important to educate the trade.
Having taken plenty of educationals to Africa over the years, it was really great taking a group to Kenya recently who had so little first-hand experience of Africa and Serena (see images here). They were all very impressed with what they saw and encountered and all felt that they would now find it easier to sell Kenya.
So often when a consultant gets an enquiry for a destination they don’t know they either try and switch sell to somewhere they do know, or they pass the booking on to a colleague in the same office / shop who does have some knowledge and conversely when they get asked for a holiday and they have recently been on an educational, they may switch to the recently discovered region. It was heartening after the recent trip that everyone agreed that they really wanted to push Kenya and Serena more in future.
For me, Serena never disappoints. Yes, sometimes things can be done a little better (no one is perfect), but on the whole they do come up trumps. The standards are constantly improving – the new tents at Sweetwater’s are stunning and the next phase will be the main buildings, which will be completed in April. It never ceases to amaze me how well the upgrades and refurbishments are done, with little or no disturbance to the guests.
The amazing high standards that Serena demands throughout the group are all too evident at the new Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp – all I can say is Wow! Stunning accommodation, great food and a great location. The birdlife is incredible and the scenery beautiful.
At Mountain Lodge we were totally taken in by Benson, probably the best field guide I have ever met in East Africa, with exceptional knowledge and a great personality and an ability to keep the listener hanging on every word.
The final highlight of our all too brief visit to Kenya was snorkelling a mile or so off Shanzu beach. Some of the group where not very confident in the water, but they did not have to miss out as they could watch the fish from the glass bottomed boat.
If it was all about a tick list – I think we ticked most of the boxes.
