Executive Summary

Following the forum held on 10 January 2015 by hotel professional colleagues from the wider hospitality industry, an idea was proposed to form and register a professional association.

The Association would be tasked with the mandate of regulating professional practice and giving a recognised voice to professionals working throughout the industry.

This was especially important in relation to hospitality establishments including hotels, lodges, restaurants, bars, spas, country clubs, hospitals, entertainment businesses, meetings and convention industries.

It was felt that despite the tremendous gains achieved through the growth of the hospitality industry, the benefits from the industry's resources were disproportionately skewed in favour of investors and foreign expatriate workers.

This situation was considered unfair when taking into account the social and economic contribution made by the sector. Hospitality is a labour-intensive industry, a major contributor to Kenya's gross domestic product and an important source of foreign exchange.

It was further noted that the first group of locally trained professional managers had joined formal training in 1969 at the former Hotel Training School based at the Technical University, formerly Kenya Polytechnic.

Nevertheless, major hotel chains and travel-sector organisations continued to import expatriate labour despite the existence of highly qualified and experienced Kenyan managers and other professional cadres.

This practice was considered to work against the government's policy of creating employment for trained and qualified home-grown professionals.

It also resulted in significant capital outflow to other economies while Kenya remained a source of highly trained and skilled industry workers, even as professional opportunities remained difficult to secure locally.

The Association's objective is to create community goodwill and provide its members with career development, professional growth and empowerment.

It seeks to achieve this through networking, collaboration and business partnerships among members both within and outside the hospitality profession.

The forum appointed a steering committee to pursue the idea and gave the committee the mandate to begin searching for a suitable association name.

After securing an appropriate name, the committee was required to seek a letter of No Objection from the Tourism Regulatory Authority, a department within the Ministry of Tourism mandated to regulate and license operators and participants within the hotel and tourism industry.

The committee initially settled on the name “Association of Hospitality and Tourism Professionals”.

A name search was initiated through a letter dated 12 January 2015, after which the proposed names were confirmed as available and reserved.

On 5 June 2015, the Tourism Regulatory Authority issued a letter of No Objection under reference TRA/1/14/(222).

When the interim official proceeded to file the formal registration of the Association, it was discovered that the previously reserved name was no longer available.

Another association had already been registered using the name “Tourism Professional Association”, and the committee was advised to select another name to avoid duplication or conflicts of interest.

A further meeting was convened and several alternative names were proposed.

It was eventually decided to adopt the name “Association of Hotel Professionals Kenya” because the majority of the founder members came from hotel industry backgrounds.

The Tourism Regulatory Authority later confirmed that there was no need to apply for another letter of No Objection because the original letter had already fulfilled the required objectives.

The committee was instead requested to provide a copy of the new name for official filing purposes.