Cinnamon to acquire four global properties

Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts, part of the John Keells Holdings (JKH) group is gearing to sign a deal with an ‘island’ and enter India by the end of the year making it four properties. “We are serious about entering India and having two properties there by the end of the year and we are also very close to signing a third deal with an island which is 1,000 miles away,” CEO Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts, Rohan Karr, told The Sunday Times FT, but declined to give more details about the properties. He said after April, Cinnamon would be an international brand with the launching of Alidhoo Island in the Maldives as ‘Cinnamon International’,” he added.

The company recently launched Habarana Lodge as Cinnamon Lodge with a US$ 2 million investment. “The Cinnamon Lodge is repositioned at the top end of the tourist market,” Karr explained, adding that the repositioning was done to move away from the traditional roundtrip culture. “Habarana Lodge was always part of a roundtrip hotel where the guests only stayed for one night at the hotel, but when we repositioned it as Cinnamon Lodge, we wanted the customers to stay more than one day and brought about the relevant changes,” he added.

About the country’s current situation affecting the industry, he said it was important to ‘not sit idle’ in such a period. “This is because we are confident about the future. The immediate future depends on how the travellers react to the travel warnings, but when these advisories are withdrawn, we need to be able to tell the tourists that we have not been sitting idle during the tensions within the country, but strived to offer good products,” he explained. He said the company had done well as expected last year, but Cinnamon Grand, the flagship city hotel of Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts achieved a greater market share than in 2005.