John Keells Holdings (JKH), Sri Lanka's top leisure group which is buying up a rival chain in the island, says its Maldives units are not affected by a recent bombing and is going ahead with re-branding its atoll resorts.
The group's leisure division has just concluded a deal offering to buy up three hotels with 490 rooms which will boost its total capacity to over 2600 rooms in both Sri Lanka and the Maldive Islands.
The group has 850 rooms in Colombo through its Cinnamon Grand and Trans Asia hotels and controls about 40 percent of the 5-star category accommodation in the Sri Lankan capital.
Outside the capital, including in the central hills and Sri Lanka beach areas Keells operates 700 rooms.
"We are very confident of the prospects for tourism in Sri Lanka," says JKH director Ajith Gunewardene.
"The completion of this acquisition it would strengthen our position on the beach which could considered the best in the West Coast [of Sri Lanka]."
The group also has 500 rooms in the Maldive Islands which is a premium market.
Sri Lankan hotels have lost money as an internal conflict intensified from 2006 and Keells as well as Aitken Spence have found their leisure profits boosted by atoll revenues.
Officials say they do not expect much negative fallout of from the recent bombing in the Maldives capital Male which injured a dozen tourists.
"There has been no impact, we are currently running 500 rooms which we are comfortable with," Gunewardene said.
"It is a one-off stray incident."
Keells is planning to re-brand two more resorts by December under its Chaaya brand.
The two resorts which are already in its portfolio, will add over 200 rooms to JKH's chain of resorts in Maldives.
"The coming months are the tourist season. It will be very good," predicts Jayantissa Kehelpannala chief executive of Chaaya Hotels and Resorts.
The group is pumping about 10 million dollars for the re-branding process, Kehelpannala said.
Tourism is the key driver of economy in Maldives which is the richest nation in South Asia with a per-capita income of 2,674 dollars.
With a good tourist turnout, Maldives resorts are expected to register around 95 percent occupancy on average, he said.
The new hotels are situated in Dhonveli and Ilaidhoo islands of the archipelago which has 1,192 islands.
Dhonveli Maldives is situated in North Male Atoll, which is a few kilometres away from Male International Airport.
Ilaidhoo Maldives is a coral island, located on the eastern fringes of North Ari Atoll, which is about 40-42 kilometres from the main airport.
JKH, with interests in leisure, transport, property sales, financial services and consumer food saw its revenue from the leisure sector increase by 39 percent to 7.58 billion rupees of which a significant share comes from Maldives.
Courtesy: LBO
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