Financial Times

Connaissance eyes hotels in Colombo and Matara
By Duruthu Edirimuni
Connaissance Holdings, which re-launched its Connaissance Resorts brand as Amaya Resorts and Spas, is looking to acquire a Colombo hotel and a property in Matara to build a five star hotel in the south in the next few months, while being totally unfazed by the recent political developments in the country. “Through the Amaya brand we want to launch a city hotel.

Presently we are looking for a property in Colombo and have planned to build a five star hotel as well (in Matara),” Dhammika Perera, Deputy Chairman, of the holding company, Connaissance Holdings, told The Sunday Times FT.
He said the political environment in the country does not bother him, but the peace factor does. “I am not interested in political stability, but having peace in the country is very important for tourism,” he added. Nimal Perera, Finance Director, Connaissance Holdings said they will acquire a city hotel in about three months and will launch it within next year.

“We will call it Amaya Grand,” he said. He said the firm will look at overseas expansion, but it is not one of their immediate plans. “We will definitely go international with the Amaya brand in the future,” he said. He said the firm has a lot of confidence in the tourism sector and that the political environment will not affect their ventures at all. “We are not concerned about the tsunami implications as well, because despite the catastrophe last December, we have made profits up to now during this year,” he added. He said the rebranding of the Connaissance Resorts cost them Rs.20 million within nine months and was completed through Bangkok-based creative agency and branding specialists, Keen Media.

“This new concept is an initiative to further manifest the company’s Sri Lankan roots while at the same time identifying its offerings as boutique level products,” he said.

He said the firm wants to be known internationally through Amaya, the Sanskrit word for reality and non illusion by offering the customers the best of the country’s indigenous cultural and ecological heritages. The company’s properties in Kandalama, formerly called Culture Club is now the Amaya Lake and the Le Kandyan in Kandy was launched as Amaya Hills, while the property at Hikkaduwa called The Reef is now the Amaya Reef.

Nimal Perera said the firm will recover the investment for the whole re-branding exercise within a year. “We will be relying nearly 25 percent on web bookings, which is a growing preference by high yield tourists globally,” he said.

Lalin Samarawickrama, Director of Connaissance’s Hotel division, said the company invested Rs.600 million in the current refurbishment and repositioning of the three Amaya properties and they will be opening the brand new Amaya Beach in Wadduwa in mid 2006.

Finance Minister, Dr. Sarath Amunugama, the chief guest at the launching ceremony held last week, called Dhammika Perera the ‘wonder boy’ of entrepreneurship in the country and said the time is right for the tourism industry to attract high spending upper bracket tourists. “This process will add to the public coffers and make my life easier,” he said.

Back to Business