As an undergraduate student at the University of Nairobi, Duncan Muriuki had a bird’s eye-view of the goings and comings at Lillian Towers, now Nairobi Safari Club. What really caught his eye were the Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) tour vans that would pick up and drop off tourists to and from their various destinations.
A&K exclusively dealt with the high end segment of the tourism market. So impressed was Muriuki with the organisational capability of A&K that he vowed to himself that he would one day work for the tour firm.
After completing his studies, Muriuki decided to pursue his dream and sought a job as a management trainee with A&K. The practice then was for A&K and any other tour firm to source their employees from the specialist Utalii College, but Muriuki, a marketing graduate from the University of Nairobi, convinced them that he was the right man for the job.
His very first assignment turned out to be a baptism of fire. At Lillian Towers they encountered a most agitated couple. “This couple was on their honeymoon and it seemed that something had not gone according to their expectations,” recalls the soft-spoken Muriuki. The angry couple caused quite a scene at the hotel.
All this time the lady giving Muriuki the orientation was extremely courteous and not once did she raise her voice. “She eventually solved the problem and the couple was very happy,” recalls Muriuki.
Muriuki was impressed by the professional manner the lady sorted out the issue. He also got to learn the most important element in this type of business; that the customer is always right.
Within two years of joining the company, Muriuki had become the general manager at A&K.
Today, after a change of name Muriuki is now the CEO of Maniago Safaris.
Sitting in his spacious first floor office along James Gichuru Road Muriuki says with some pride that Maniago is the leading conference organiser in the country: “All the rest come in a distant second! We are the masters of conference tourism.”
He adds that theirs is a tour operator and travel agent all rolled into one.
He explains that Maniago, which has been in existence since 1999, is a one-stop shop for tour services provision, from booking flights and visas to airport transfers and accommodation. “If need arises, we also book local flights, and as for hotel accommodation we negotiate special terms with hotels to get special rates,” he says. “Once our clients land here, theirs is just to sit back and have a good time. Remember we do this for a living, hence we have to do it well.”
Muriuki says Maniago specialises in large group handling. His eyes light up when he talks about how Maniago handled one of the biggest conferences ever to be held on Kenyan soil — the ICASA conference which was held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in 2003.
“The conference had over 7,000 delegates and we handled everything,” he says. “So huge was the delegation that we had to book their accommodation as far afield as Thika.”
The challenge he says was to ensure that all the delegates got to the conference venues in good time and back to their hotels. There were also special cocktails, tours and excursions to be organised. In fact, Maniago put up a special website for the conference.
Muriuki says that the whole operation was carried out with military precision. Under ordinary circumstances this is a job that would have been handled by more than two different companies, but Maniago being what they are presented a radical proposal to handle everything and the conference organisers were satisfied that they would pull it off.
“We cannot afford to take chances,” he says. “A bad decision can cost you another conference.”
There are instances where Muriuki goes out of his way to meet the needs of a particular guest, often at his own cost. “The key here is to make your clients happy,” he says. “A happy client will most definitely recommend you to other clients who will give you business.”
A case in point is when Maniago organised the Africities Conference in Nairobi. One of the VIP delegates, a mayor from South Africa, insisted on being taken on a tour of Kibera. But there was a rider: The man wanted the trip to be incognito; without the ordinary protocol accorded such VIP guests and minus conspicuous security.
Here Muriuki found himself in a dilemma; how to keep his client happy and ensure his security. Quick thinking saw him again activate his contacts, this time in the security sector, who provided undercover protection under the guise of guides. “At the end of it all everything turned out so well and I had a very happy client,” Muriuki says with a wide smile.
Muriuki acknowledges that their operations would not succeed without the support of his staff. “Our staff is the backbone of our company,” he says. “They are all well trained multilingual individuals, each with over 12 years’ experience.”
Maniago regularly trains their staff on how to handle stressful moments and to be able to understand the psychology of the client. Maniago has 33 core staff and more than 200 auxiliary staff.
Maniago has an added feather in their cap; they are the only tour operator in Kenya which is a registered film agent. Here their job involves processing the necessary paperwork, including acquiring permits for filming equipment. Their first major job was the shooting of the Spanish edition of the Survival series.
They scored again with the Spanish edition of the National Geographic Channel. Maniago helped shoot a documentary on a rare cultural event; the Maasai generational change ceremony which takes place once in every 30 years.
All this was thanks to James ole Nairuko, an ordained Maasai chief, who also happens to be the cultural coordinator at Maniago. “Culture is a very important aspect of our business,” says Muriuki.
It is not just about business and profits at Maniago; they also have a charitable side to them in the form of Angels of Hope Orphanage in Kirinyaga, which takes care of orphaned children from the area. One of the accountants employed by Maniago is a product of the orphanage.
Muriuki, who has an MBA in Marketing, was voted Tourism Personality of the Year in 2007. Maniago has offices in Madrid, US, Toronto, London and Japan.