Onyx hospitality to expand in five years
View(s):Sino Lanka, owners of the two OZO hotels in Sri Lanka, is looking at expanding their hospitality experience to Sigiriya and Nuwara Eliya and have options to move to the East and North of the country within the next five years. The Thai-based Onyx Hospitality Group has now upgraded destination Sri Lanka as a regional entity ensuring the brands are in line with the region, Onyx Sri Lanka Vice President, Area General Manager Simon Dell told the Business Times on Wednesday. “We recognise development of Sri Lanka is on a steep curve and have upgraded the country to region,” he said. In this respect, there would be a higher level of personnel to ensure the brands are in line with the region with a new addition being the winter opening of Amari Galle, another brand under the Onyx Group.
Mr. Dell said while the country requires a well-planned marketing campaign with a homogenous flavour to push the country forward it also requires the necessary infrastructure with swift connections to airports, highways and railways. He noted that though destinations like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand may be a step ahead the group is quite happy with where the country stands today. The opening of Amari Galle would herald a new and different market segment ensuring that travellers form groups in visiting the destination by luring them into a shared cocktail, shared dining experiences giving opportunities for people to spend time together as friends and family, Mr. Dell said.
The new hotel has 172 rooms and suites with rooms inspired by Sri Lankan art and local architecture, gardens, two restaurants, a rooftop bar, Amari’s signature spa Breeze Spa in addition to a banquet hall to fit in 350 guests and a gymnasium. Mr. Dell explained that they hoped to attract Chinese individual high spending travellers, the Indian wedding market and the Indian MICE segment at Amara Galle. In fact even today the two hotels in Colombo and Kandy were attracting the Chinese FIT traveller who are aware of new booking and payment options. On Destination Sri Lanka, he said the country required a modern approach to leadership with ability to handle sales and marketing differently. He noted that the closure of the country’s main international airport Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) for three months next year was unlikely to impact significantly on their guests visiting the destination.