Serena Hotels: engaging with the local community

The naturalist and chef from Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge in Kenya distribute seedlings and provide horticultu...

AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura

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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 wa...

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

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AKDN 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 techn...

AKDN

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Promoting sustainable mountain tourism in Kyrgyzstan

UCA students go horseback riding on the Naryn side of the Tian Shan (Mountains of Heaven), whose highest peak ...

UCA

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AKDN parks and gardens

Al-Azhar Park, Cairo, Egypt. The project included the excavation and extensive restoration of the 12th Century...

AKDN / Christian Richters

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Sustainable Tourism in Northern Pakistan

In Pakistan, AKTC undertook restoration and re-use of the Khaplu Palace, built in 1840, which is the finest su...

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

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AKDN | Hospitality and Tourism

As the Serena Group has learned in so many other places, world-class travel facilities can be crucial components of what we call ‘an enabling environment’ – a setting in which additional development initiatives can take root and thrive.

His Highness the Aga Khan
Maputo, December 2010

Agencies

Focused on Hospitality and Tourism

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

   Afghanistan