Financial Times - Aitken Spence exporting its hotel skills to India

The hotel is under construction and scheduled to go into operation in December 2006. A second similar hotel under construction will also be managed by Aitken Spence and is scheduled to be completed by October/November 2007.
In Kerela, Aitken Spence is setting up the first Heritance brand hotel overseas in a joitn venture with an Indian company. The 50-room luxury resort with floating villas and spa hotel will be located on a 15-acre land on an island in the backwaters of Kerala. In Madurai, the cultural route of Tamil Nadu, Aitken Spence is to manage a unique garden resort with 80 rooms.

Aitken Spence Hotel Managements (ASHM), following in the footsteps of Sri Lanka’s Damro and Ceylon Biscuits who have either set up new branches in India or bought over existing businesses, is gaining more than a foothold in the leisure industry in the country’s large neighbour.

The company has signed an agreement with a family-owned group to manage a 5 star medium size hotel in New Delhi with extensive banquet/meeting facilities and with 150 rooms.

In Kerala, Aitken Spence is setting up the first Heritance brand hotel overseas in a joint venture with an Indian company. The 50-room luxury resort with floating villas and spa hotel will be located on a 15-acre land on an island in the backwaters of Kerala. In Madurai, the cultural route of Tamil Nadu, Aitken Spence is to manage a unique garden resort with 80 rooms. Plans are being finalized to refurbish the complex without distorting the ambience of the existing resort. The company said two other projects in India are under negotiation and would be finalized in the near future. Asked why Indians are seeking Sri Lankan expertise to run hotels when it has always been the other way around with the Oberoi and Taj experience, Malin Hapugoda, Managing Director of Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings said: “Maybe they were impressed with our skills in running our unique hotels – Tea Factory, Kandalama and Heritance Ahungalla.”

He said some of the Indian contacts came through Indian parties who had visited and stayed at these hotels.