All Intensive Purposes

The skating rink opened late last year. It is the first in the region, and the only functioning rink in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa.

Part of a hotel and shopping complex that includes a Brazilian restaurant, casino and Moroccan coffee shop, the rink, which cost 50m shillings ($704,000, €585,575, £40,500), was intended to be a unique marketing tool in an increasingly competitive market.

"Cinemas are plenty in Nairobi, malls are plenty, restaurants are plenty, so we were thinking, 'what do we use as a unique selling point'," says Sigi Loeper, managing director of the complex, the Panari Sky Centre. "We said 'okay lets do something crazy . . . let's build an ice skating rink'."

// posted by t.s. @ 5:13 PM