Serena Hotels: engaging with the local community
The naturalist and chef from Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge in Kenya distribute seedlings and provide horticultural training to members of the local community. With these new skills, the Maasai not only have a safer, more steady and diversified food supply, they also have the prospect of harvesting surplus and selling it back to the Lodge for additional income.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
Learn moreSerena Hotels: engaging with the local community
The naturalist and chef from Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge in Kenya distribute seedlings and provide …
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
Learn more
The Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan: An award-winning green tourist destination
The Pamirs Eco-Cultural Tourism Association, which has been successful in bringing attention to the area in ways that benefit local communities, opens a new tourism centre in Bulunkul, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
Read moreThe Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan: An award-winning green tourist destination
The Pamirs Eco-Cultural Tourism Association, which has been successful in bringing attention to the area in …
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
Read moreAKDN interview with Salman Beg: Cultural heritage and identity in Pakistan
Conservation of the Serena Shigar Fort in Pakistan has fostered an awareness of traditional construction techniques and revived traditional crafts. The photo shows the Baradari monument on the Fort grounds.
AKDN
Read moreAKDN interview with Salman Beg: Cultural heritage and identity in Pakistan
Conservation of the Serena Shigar Fort in Pakistan has fostered an awareness of traditional construction …
AKDN
Read more
This page is also available inAKDN | Hospitality and Tourism
AKDN promotes tourism in areas where natural beauty is one of the few assets at the disposal of a community. We develop these activities in culturally and environmentally sensitive ways that improve the quality of life for people in the vicinity of these projects, whether in Afghanistan’s Wakhan Valley or Tanzania’s natural reserves.
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There are 35 Serena properties in nine countries.
5,450
Serena Hotels employ over 5,450 people.
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Pamir Eco-Culture Tourism Association offers over 170 homestay options among the mountains of Tajikistan.
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There are 35 Serena properties in nine countries.
Can tourism help the planet?
“Everyone should be responsible for making a difference. At Serena Hotels, we do things to show people that something can be done.”
5,450
Serena Hotels employ over 5,450 people.
Serena Hotels: engaging with the local community
Serena provides employment to 4,000 East Africans and gives priority and training to over 2,000 local suppliers and companies.
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Pamir Eco-Culture Tourism Association offers over 170 homestay options among the mountains of Tajikistan.
The Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan: An award-winning green tourist destination
Supported by the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme, the Association aims to help alleviate poverty effectively and sustainably.
His Highness the Aga Khan
Maputo, December 2010
Agencies
Focused on Hospitality and Tourism
In most cases, our projects are conceived as engines of development, whether a small guesthouse in Tajikistan, a tourist itinerary in Cairo, or a reconstructed hotel in Kabul. The projects may promote entrepreneurial spirit, offer employment and skills training, draw investment into an area, provide markets for local suppliers or supply the amenities required by international investors.
Efforts to promote tourism have included the restoration of numerous forts, mosques and homes in remote parts of Pakistan. They include the creation of parks and gardens in Cairo and Zanzibar. They have encompassed a ski competition in Bamyan, Afghanistan and guesthouses in the transitioning economies of Central Asia. As in all AKDN projects, we emphasise the active engagement and input of the local community.
For over 15 years, conservationist Maurice Undah at the Mombasa Serena Beach Resort & Spa (Kenya) has been educating guests and schoolchildren about butterflies, their brief life cycles, and how their presence or absence can tell us a lot about the local environment and climatic changes.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
Serena Hotels
Serena Hotels, part of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, builds hotels in underserved areas, often at the request of central governments. Underpinned by the AKDN ethos, they not only provide an economic stimulus in the normal course of business operation – through employment, training and local sourcing, for example – but they also support measures that improve the quality of life in neighbouring areas.
These measures include water and sanitation programmes, health initiatives, school renovation projects, reforestation programmes, indigenous plant re-stocking projects, butterfly breeding and turtle-protection projects.
Each Serena property is designed to celebrate and reflect its area’s artistic idioms and cultural expressions. Environmental sensitivity and sustainability are hallmarks of the hotels, which have won a number of environmental awards. Serena operates 33 hotels, resorts, safari lodges and camps, palaces and forts located in East Africa, Mozambique and Southern Asia.
Where We Work
Hospitality and Tourism