TV Times

John Keells Hotels (JKH) announced the opening of Chaaya Village Habarana, the first of its resort hotel chains under the "Chaaya Hotels & Resorts" brand to a gathering of important guests and destination management companies on Saturday, May 6.

The brand was launched at the ITB Tourism Fair in Berlin earlier this year as part of a multiple branding and focused marketing strategy of JKH's hotel portfolio. The name Chaaya, meaning 'image' encompasses the surrounding environment and culture intrinsic to each of the hotel and is packaged to provide a total experience based on the interests of customers, while maintaining a consistent standard of service across all hotels within the Chaaya chain.

"Our brand concept was well-received in Berlin. We are now happy to re-launch the recently refurbished Village Habarana as 'Chaaya Village Habarana' the first hotel under the new brand, which signifies a new image and approach to marketing our services. We remain positive and committed to our re branding initiative despite the setbacks the industry may have experienced in the last few weeks", said Jayantissa Kehelpannala, Chief Executive Officer of Chaaya Hotels and Resorts.

"We will now be marketing a diverse range of experiences, to our customers, and moving away from the earlier concept of marketing a property or a destination", Mr. Kehelpannala added.

According to the branding concept, Chaaya Village will offer a series of 'Experience Packages' targeting interests of guests from adventure and history to culture and nature. Each package will take guests on tours of discovery into the unique and under-utilized attractions of Habarana, and include innovative dining and beverage options, giving guests a taste of the locality, true to the 'Chaaya' promise.

Complementing this, the remodeled décor and layout of the hotel, blends with the environs of Habarana and seek to mirror a 'Village' atmosphere.

A considerable investment has also been made in the human resources of the organization towards transforming the mindset of the staff to live up to the brand promise. In addition, staff training has been conducted to establish Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), and Minimum Quality Standard (MQS) to ensure the same levels of service across all Chaaya hotels.

Marketing of Chaaya Village under its new identity and concept to overseas tour operators will commence with the winter season bookings, while local customers will be able to experience the Chaaya way following the opening this week.
Other hotels, soon to be launched under the Chaaya brand will be the Hakuraa Club in the Maldives, The Citadel Kandy and Yala Village in Sri Lanka.
The company as part of its multi-brand strategy, earlier launched Cinnamon Grand in Colombo under the new 'Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts' brand, which is an up-market proposition that will be extended to both its city hotels and certain identified resorts within the portfolio.