Not only an Italian tourism pioneer, but the first entrepreneur in the industry to bet on Kenya not only as a safari destination.
Franco Rosso, for many (but not for us) a man, a brand, has left us at 94. To be written all attached: Francorosso, like his tour operator, one of the most famous ever. Here in Malindi, as in Diani, where he and his wife Amalia, who preceded him by a few years, Franco had left their hearts.

"I still continue to travel the world," he had confided to me in his last chat, before the pandemic, "I have Patagonia in mind, for next year. Franco, besides being an enlightened entrepreneur and a courageous man, was basically a curious person.
Ever since he was a boy, he told me for the book "Portraits of Italians in Kenya," he listened open-mouthed to his father, who had been a construction foreman on the African continent, tell stories of animals, forests and deserts and fantasized about one day seeing those places. In anticipation of the Africa he dreamed of, he began to become a travel agent.

"I had to wait until 1967 to make my first trip here," Rosso recalled, "I left with my wife Amalia for a month-long vacation. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. After a few safaris in tented camps, I moved from Nairobi to the coast, which I knew was frequented almost exclusively by European residents enjoying the sun and the Indian Ocean."
It is there that the tour operator decides to invest in the Kenya destination.
He opened the first safari agency in Nairobi in 1969, "Intertour," on Mama Ngina Street. Four years later, he organizes the first charter flight from Italy to Nairobi.

"Everyone considered Kenya only for safaris, but I was convinced that the coast had great potential: the fabulous climate, the virgin nature, the friendly people, the minimal time difference that made it preferable to Caribbean destinations. Charter flights would have brought Europe even closer to the beautiful beaches and warm seas, especially in the winter months. All Kenya lacked was infrastructure-and that was no small thing."
So Franco bets on the white beaches of Diani, where there is Leopard Beach, built by his friend and then president of Torino Calcio Orfeo Pianelli. Then he bets on Malindi, where he builds the Tropical Village and in the last decades acquires two more hotels, the Dream of Africa and the Coconut, which unfortunately will experience troubled seasons and will remain his worry. Finally in 2018, not content, he opens a fourth property, the Malindi Dream Garden.
Dream, like the dreams that never left him, despite the fact that the period of enforced seclusion and advancing age limited his travels and the possibility of being able to stay longer in his Malindi. Good and big dreams, Franco. We will miss you.
To his children Sara, Paolo and Alessandro, the deepest condolences of malindikenya.net