Following the forum held on 10th January 2015 by the Hotel professional colleagues from the wider hospitality industry, an idea was mooted to form and register a professional association tasked with the mandate, to regulate and give a voice to the professionals in this industry, especially that touching on the regulation of Hospitality, Hotels, Lodges, Restaurants, Bars, Spas, Country Clubs, Hospitals, Entertainment, Meeting and Convention Industries sector.

It was felt that in spite of the tremendous gains made on the growth of the industry, the benefits from the industry’s resources was skewed in favour of investors and foreign expatriate workers, a situation that was unfair considering the social and economic impact, the sector played in the country, as a labour intensive industry and a major contributor to the Country’s GDP and Foreign

Exchange earner. It was further noted that even with the first batch of locally trained professional Managers having joined the formal training in 1969, at the then Hotel Training School (HTS) based at the Technical University (Formerly Kenya Polytechnic), the region’s major hotel chains and travel sector still continued to import expatriate labour, despite the existence of highly qualified/experienced Managers and other professional cadres locally, a practice that was working against the government’s policy of creating jobs for trained and qualified home grown professionals which had led to massive capital labour flights to other economies which has found Kenya a convenient sanctuary to source highly trained and skilled industry workers for all cadres, as jobs have remained elusive back home.

The association’s objective is to create community goodwill, provide its members with career and professional growth and empowerment, through networking and partnering in business with other members within and outside the professional.

The forum appointed a steering committee to pursue this idea and gave them mandate to commence the search of a suitable name and upon securing one, seek a letter of no objection from the Tourism Regulatory Authority (TRA), a department within the Ministry of Tourism which is mandated to regulate and license the operators and players within the Hotel & Tourism industry. The committee settled for the “Association of Hospitality and Tourism Professionals” as a suitable name and proceeded to apply for a search vides a letter dated 12 January 2015 where the names were found available and subsequently reserved.

On 5 the June 2015, a letter of no objection was issued by the Tourism Regulatory Authority vide their reference number TRA/1/14/ (222).
However, when the interim official proceeded to file the formal registration of the association, it was discovered that the name that had been reserved was no longer available after it was found that another association had already been registered using the name “Tourism Professional Association” and was advised to select another name to avoid duplication or conflicts of interest.

A meeting was convened where several other names were floated and it was decided to settle for the Association of Hotel Professionals - Kenya, since the majority of the founder members were from the Hotel industry backgrounds.

The TRA (upon enquiry) confirmed that there was no need to apply for another letter of no objection as the first one had met the objectives but requested for a copy of the new name for filing purposes.