Italian billionaire Flavio Briatore plans to build an ultramodern five-star tourism resort in Nairobi this month.
Briatore who is the owner of the exclusive Lion In The Sun Resort in Malindi says he is currently holding talks with government authorities to ensure the project kicks off without incident.
In an interview with Word Is at his resort, the billionaire who is on a 10 day holiday said Nairobi was an easy choice as a location because it is cleaner, organized and fit for business.
Flavio said Malindi is missing out on international investments opportunities for high-end tourism due to poor infrastructure. Many investors are reluctant to inject funds for setting up state of the art tourism projects or even bringing in their friends because of the problems that have taken over two decades to fix.
Among the celebrities and potential investors who have visited the billionaire's resort and are willing to put up investments include
American private equity real estate investor
Tom Barack,
French motorsport executive
Jean Todt,
former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italian billionaire and co-founder of the Benetton group Luciano Benetton.
Flavio is known for hosting bigwigs in his very exclusive, high-end hotel. Some of the guests who have vacationed in his Malindi hotel include Michael Schumacher a retired German race car driver, Jason Button also a race car driver and former formula one driver, Fernando Alonso.
Others are
the first prime minister of Spain
Jose Maria Alfredo Aznar Lopez and Irish singer and songwriter Bono.
Currently, popular Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli and his wife Eva are vacationing at his resort while British supermodel Naomi Campbell was present for the Christmas vacation and many other international celebrities,
together with a lot of other potential investors for the country.
Flavio said they are willing to invest if the government relocates the dumpsite from the current location 300 meters away from where Lion In The Sun, 10 other hotels and over 100 villas are located.