High-profile guests leave the bar veranda and head for the enclosed space, just steps from the ocean, from which up to six helicopters can take off and land at once.
The other 150 clients are scattered among four conference rooms of different capacities, the breakfast buffet, the lounge bar with snacks, two swimming pools, a pool bar, the SPA and the immense and well-kept garden spaces. In a few hours many of them will convey in the main restaurant and in the more intimate one with sea view.
To believe and see that all this is happening in Malindi in 2021, you just need to visit the Ocean Beach Resort & SPA, emblem of international hospitality, with the great organizational capacity of its owner Roberto Marini.
Ten years after its opening, the Ocean Beach Resort & SPA is now a perfect machine and has become the only true point of reference in Malindi for a local VIP and international clientele, for meetings and gatherings of various kinds, but also for travelers and families who prefer the comfort of services and attention to detail, as well as relaxation and informal luxury.
The resort's suites and other accommodations this October, as in the previous one for Independence Day, are "fully booked," sold out.
"It's an important goal, the recognition of a growing work - admits Roberto Marini - but we don't rest on our laurels. By now our "mission" is to maintain certain standards every day of the year. I won't hide, for example, that it was hard and costly not to lay off staff during the period of pandemic restrictions. But in addition to saving jobs and ensuring the livelihood of many families, it was the only way to never lower the quality of our services. Today, our 90 employees, 50% of whom are female, are a great team (and all vaccinated)! Each of them has their own placement, with very specific duties and responsibilities.
Thanks to the constancy of service, we have become a point of reference for local and international Conferences and business trips. In spite of the working day, our guests don't stay closed in the hotel but they also want to escape, to enjoy a good restaurant outside our structure or to appreciate what the destination can offer, thus turning around the economy of the other activities of Malindi, including the hotels that remained open (because we don't always have the necessary capacity to accommodate all the participants in meetings and events)".
At the top of the organizational pyramid of the "perfect machine" is Mrs. Maureen Awuor, General Manager who has just returned from a hotel refresher course in South Africa, subsidized of course by the company. She is also currently in charge of the main National Hotel and Restaurant Association, KAHC for Kilifi County.
"Ten years ago, when we opened," Maureen says, "I was hired as an accountant. Roberto Marini and his Wife Daniela never considered me just an employee, they believed in me and made me grow. At Ocean Beach Resort & SPA, upgrading is a parallel activity to our work and I had the opportunity to advance my career, happy to stay in the same facility that helped me reach certain levels. And now I'm the first to evaluate and highlight my colleagues."
The quality and service of the restaurant -reports Roberto Marini- has been enriched by the new acquisition of two Kenyans returning from important experiences in the most celebrated hotel in Dubai, the Burj Al Arab, better known as "La vela". Chef Paul Kimani brought the excellence of preparations, new menu ideas and organization in the kitchen that he experienced in the mecca of modern hospitality, Food and Beverage Manager Chimo Chimoche, seven years of experience in the pearl of the Arabian Gulf, definitely raised the bar in catering.
"It's nice to come back home to create, as a standard of service and guest satisfaction, a little Dubai in Malindi," says Chimoche, "a few days ago we had a top politician here who acknowledged me. Just as he was surprised to see a compatriot as manager in his favorite facility in Dubai, so he was equally happily surprised to find me in Malindi."   
Menus that appear on the smartphone via QR code on the placemats, a roundup of "petite patisserie" whose scent mingles with that of flowers, a spa among the best-stocked on the coast and one of the few that hold true to the name "Salus per Aquam," with a walkway of water and salt solutions, mud and steam, in addition to classic treatments and massages and the new yoga room, a sign of the attention to trends and rediscoveries combined with tourism.
"In recent years the market has changed," explains Marketing Manager Rosemary Muthee, "we are dealing with a more knowledgeable and demanding domestic clientele and an international market that welcomes new countries, including from our own continent. In addition, thanks to conferences and business meetings, we receive guests of all nationalities from organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations, and it's a great sign of appreciation to see them return on vacation with their families".
Not to be overlooked is the work of Operation and Human Resources manager Paul Muhutsu, coordinator of all staff and Public Relations.
At a difficult time for world tourism, which is only now beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of the pandemic, the Ocean Beach Resort & SPA not only brings prestige to one of the African destinations, but also sets an example and acts as a driving force for relaunching a destination that still has a thousand resources, thanks to the professionalism and determination of the few who still have the desire to bet on quality, on developing local personnel and on the potential of the Kenyan coast.