Jetwing looking to invest in India

Jetwing Hotels is looking to possibly invest in a hotel in Cochin, India and also develop land in Kandy.

“We are having negotiations with some property owners in Cochin for a hotel project,” a company official told The Sunday Times FT, on the back of its successful launch last week of the upmarket chalets in Sigiriya called Vil Uyana.

The official said so far it is not very clear whether the company plans to manage a hotel or invest in one, but the discussions are on with an Indian hotel chain.

He said that the immediate step for Jetwing during the next few months is to re-launch Yala Safari Game Lodge, which was destroyed by the tsunami and has now been renovated. “Afterwards we will develop the land we own in Kandy,” he said.

The company is looking at an upmarket hotel in Kandy as well and one of the suggested names is ‘Giri Uyana’.

Nadeera Weerasinghe, Resident Naturalist at Vil Uyana told The Sunday Times FT that with the challenge of introducing a wetland system on developed agricultural lands within the Dry Zone, the Vil Uyana concept was drawn from the local and rural traditions.

“The buildings or the chalets grow not out, but into the landscape. The ‘habitats’ naturalised by local flora and fauna creates the timelessness of a healthy ecosystem providing the setting for peace and tranquility,” he said, adding that the first man-made lakes since King Parakramabahu’s era in the 11th Century, this exciting feature allows for the first time in Sri Lanka rooms to be built over water.

Weerasinghe said that five acres of land will be used to re-grow paddy using traditional harvesting methods, providing a new and exciting feature, rooms within the paddy field, yet another first in Sri Lanka.

He said that there are 25 chalets set in three distinct ‘habitats’: seven Water Villas jutting into the water body, three Paddy Field Villas with dinning decks and swimming pools facing the paddy fields and 18 Forest Villas bordering the forested area with Dinning Decks and swimming pools spread over an area of 24 acres of land.