Budget rooms to open in urban areas
View(s):Solid Hotel, a local budget hotel chain, is providing services to meet the demands of a growing market that looks for a room to stay in Colombo at a low price for both local and foreign visitors to the city.
The Business Times spoke with Sanjay Thushara on Wednesday about his chain of hotels located in and around the Colombo city under the banner “Solid Hotel” who stated they have been in operation for over 10 years.
Currently the budget chain caters to visitors to Colombo mostly locals who would want to stay a night or two mainly when they come for some work, he said.
In addition, it was pointed out that others that frequent their hotels would be Germans, Indians, and Arabs from the Middle East wanting to stay overnight before travelling to the airport. But, he noted that Maldivians would stay for a longer period of about one or two weeks.
Mr. Thushara, who works with two other partners in the running of the hotels’ operations, has been in the industry for about 15 years.
He noted that they were already engaged in other business activities within the tourism industry namely tours and owned three safari jeeps for tours within the Yala National park.
Mr Thushara explained that they conduct tours to Sigiriya, Dambulla and Kandy upon request by tourists.
Registered under the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority as a budget hotel, they plan to open up a larger scale operation in the future.
Seasonal operations were carried out in the market with most bookings increasing during December and November, he said, adding that they do receive repeat bookings as well.
Though not carrying any kind of advertising they could be accessed and found on hotel booking websites like the very popular Agoda among others.
(SD)