The Watamu entrepreneurs, in the aftermath of the fire that destroyed a Watamu resort and lodge, have requested meetings with the highest authorities in the county. One has already taken place last Saturday and a second one is organised for today, at the suggestion of Roberto Lenzi.
Among the ideas matured by the tourism sector of the Kenyan coast, on the emotional push of the misfortune that could also have had a greater scope, there is one that finally sounds like something more than a lament or a request for attention.
It is almost useless to call for 'day-after' solutions that have never translated into action even after fires of much larger proportions, such as the one in the Casuarina residential area in Malindi.
A fire station in Watamu as well, is what they will demand today during a meeting called for by entrepreneur and hotelier Roberto Lenzi with the leadership of Kilifi County. Not only that, but also a speedy response from the local emergency units: the Malindi fire brigade's truck left an hour after the call-out, because it had no water, and stopped a few hundred metres from the fire site because it had run out of petrol. No wonder, it almost always happens like this.
This time, with the approval of many actors in coastal hospitality, one could call for the abolition of makuti ceilings for accommodation facilities. That is, as obligations to be fulfilled in order to obtain the renewal of the licences of a resort, bed & breakfast, lodge that rises in places where there is contiguity with other public facilities or private homes, also include a ban on having roofs of dry palm trees.
The first to think of this, after the fire that seriously damaged it, was the Hemingways in Watamu, which, in order not to miss the aesthetic appeal of its bar and restaurant by the Indian ocean, covered its roofs with a fake Indonesian makuti made of fireproof material.
This may be an idea to experiment with, also considering that the initial cost is certainly higher, but unlike the original makuti, it does not have to be changed every 2 or 3 years.
Moreover, with climate change and the increasingly dry summer seasons, makuti roofs are even more flammable, and the decision to ban them could be extended to private residences in residential areas, as was the case in the past in Malindi, where some forty villas, all made of makuti, burnt down. Today we will understand if there is the intention to finally proceed with some corrective measures, even important ones, that would mark a step forward in safety and in the creation of services for a tourist resort that would like to compete with other international destinations and that instead has to reckon with Africa's ancestral shortcomings and with the difficulty of creating common paths to improve the various aspects that still do not allow it to launch marvellous places on the list of the best international destinations, and in doing so all together, foreign activities and local institutions.