Aitken Spence ‘Turyaa’ hotels poised to expand
Aitken Spence Holdings’ (Spence) latest ‘Turyaa’ brand is poised to expand after opening properties in Chennai and Kalutara with another coming soon in Ahungalla, officials said.The company’s large resort construction projects in Negombo, Kalutara and Ahungalla are expected to add around 750 rooms to the sector, they said. Turyaa Chennai, the 143-room city property in India and Turyaa Kalutara have started operations.
A hotel in Kandy and another in Pasikudah are also to open soon. There are plans being drawn to construct a 15 roomed heritage property in the Galle Fort whilst retaining medium term plans to develop 100 acres of land in Pasikudah, an official said.
In the meantime, the group’s brand new 145 roomed Heritance Negombo is being constructed at Rs. 4.5 billion (US$ 35 million).
“This new 5 star property when commissioned operations in 1HFY16 would be the fifth resort in the Heritance range,” an official said
Analysts said that Spence has continuously taken steps to expand its resort portfolio in order to benefit from the growing industry dynamics. In FY12 the group’s oldest property at Beruwala was refurbished and re-positioned as Heritance Ayurveda Mahagedara at Rs. 750 million. Thereafter FY13 saw “The Sands” and Hotel Hilltop being re-branded and refurbished.
Officials said that in its South Asian sector, Spence having received regulatory approval to expand buildable area on the Maldivian archipelago is currently on the lookout for exploring opportunities to increase its room inventory.