LOLC Group targets 1,000 hotel rooms by 2015
View(s):By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera
The LOLC Group, along with its subsidiary Browns Group plans to build 1,000 hotel rooms by 2015 with some six hotels on the cards, officials said.
LOLC Leisure, the LOLC’s leisure arm has finalised the designs for the first stage of its brand new Rs 6.5 billion resort hotel in a 20-acre beach stretch in the south coast and has mapped to start construction in three months. “This is stage one of the 500 room hotel and we will be building 370 rooms initially,” an official told the Business Times.
He said LOLC is looking for an international hotel chain operator to manage it, and the Hilton chain is in the running to manage this new hotel. The 20-acre beach stretch area had two of the Confifi hotels Riverina, Club Palm Garden LOLC bought from the Furkhan family nearly two years ago and a hotel previously owned by Jetwing, Tropical Villas. “The three hotels have been closed for business for several months since May 2011 to complete building the new hotel,” the official said.
Early last year the company acquired a 99.9% stake of Dickwella Resort for Rs 1,014 million. The official said that LOLC hasn’t finalised plans for this property which has 76 rooms as yet.
Browns Group, which was bought by LOLC last year, is also contributing to LOLC’s room inventory. “Browns subsidiary Samudra Beach Resorts (Pvt) Ltd has obtained the requisite approvals to commence construction of a star class resort hotel in Kosgoda, which will be opened in November this year,” the official said. He said that Samudra Beach Resorts increased room capacity to 172 rooms at a cost of Rs. 1.7 billion, adding that negotiations are underway to have the property managed by an international hotel chain and plans are to start operations in winter 2014. “Most likely Starwood, under its Sheraton brand or InterContinental Hotels Group will manage this hotel,” he said, noting that it will be a five star hotel.
Through its subsidiary, Free Lanka Capital, Browns Investments (BI) has plans to build a 70 room hotel in Kandy at a cost of Rs 500 million. BI recently purchased 51 per cent stake in the 67-room Green Paradise Resort located in Dambulla for Rs. 500 million.
“We already possess some 755 rooms now with all the hotels we own and we want to invest in a 250 room city hotel in the medium term,” the official said, adding that either an acquisition or building is on the cards. This will be a 3-4 star property in Colombo, he further said.
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus