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Sheraton chain to construct five-star business hotel in Colombo
Thursday, 3 March 2005 - 1:14 AM SL Time
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The Sheraton chain is to construct a 225 room five star business hotel with all the state- of- the-art facilities in the heart of Colombo with an investment of 40 million US dollars. It's a joint venture between American giant Starwood Corporation and Universal Enterprises Pvt Ltd of Maldives. The Prime mover of the Project is Maldivian business tycoon Mohamed Umar Maniku, Chairman of Universal Enterprises who is no stranger to Sri Lanka having made considerable investments in Sri Lanka in diverse fields such as hospitality industry, education, meat products and mineral based products. Maniku speaking to 'The Island' about the new venture said negotiations have been held with the UDA to lease out a block of land at D. R. Wijewardene Mawatha and construction of the five star will get underway early next year and is expected to complete in 1 1/2 years time.
Maniku is no stranger to the hospitality industry world wide and is a pioneer in Maldivian tourism being the owner of Kurumba Village, the first tourist resort in Maldives having started operations in 1972 with 30 rooms and now boasting of 180 rooms. His total investments in different parts of the world in the tourism industry is valued at 200 million US dollars.
Maniku has heavily invested in the hospitality industry in Sri Lanka and owns 80% of the shares of the first five star property in the up country, Mahaweli Reach Hotel, Kandy and also has a big stake in Royal Palms Hotel, Kalutara, and Kandalama Hotel and Norfolk Foods. Fifty eight year old entrepreneur Maniku said `Have been investing in Sri Lanka during the worst times` since I believe in the philosophy of investing in the bad times and it has always followed by a boom period.`
When Maldives wanted to embark on tourism in 1972 the experts who did a survey in their reports said `Tourism in Maldives will never succeed.` But today we have proved them wrong.` When Maldives was in the infancy of tourism we even didn't have the International telephone facilities and we had to communicate using the morse code said Maniku. The veteran businessman warned the tourism authorities in Sri Lanka that in the post tsunami period droves of foreigners come here under the pretext of being good Samaritans. But all are not genuine. Among them are our competitors who come here to grab our business with negative publicity he said.
There have been a lot of adverse publicity about the tsunami hit countries asking the tourists not to visit those countries. The competitors in the tourism industry had a big hand in this campaign since they were trying to grab our business Maniku explained. How you can overcome this problem is by launching an aggressive marketing campaign for which you must have competent people he added.
Maniku's latest venture is a 110 roomed five star in the Seyshells. The investment could range from US 20 million to 40 million he said. It will be in one of the islands where the beach surrounds a beautiful mountain and the entire island consists of 400 ' 500 acres and with only 60 inhabitants in the island he said adding that all the material needed for the hotel will have to be imported. Construction has just commenced and is expected to be completed in one year Maniku said.
In addition to Kurumba Village Maniku owns another 9 hotels in the Maldives which are designed to cater to the present day demands. Maniku said `Two former American Presidents George Bush Snr and Bill Clinton were guests of Kurumba Village last week.` He said with pride our company operates two luxury passenger lines which takes tourists on 7 day cruises in the Maldives, one having 70 cabins and the other 20. I was the first to start an underwater spa in the world with 40 rooms and it's a luxury hotel which became internationally famous instantly having commenced operations only in February 2004. Maniku said Kurunmba Village was voted as one of the top 10 resorts in Asia last year. `I also have a company which operates and manages spa's` he added. Universal Enterprises also owned two hotels in Malaysia, a five star in Kwanton and the other a 4 star in Lanka. But the 5 star was sold to another company with a view of investing in a different venture Maniku said.
`We have commenced refurbishing all 114 rooms at Mahaweli Reach Hotel and the banquet hall extended and the kitchen will be upgraded with most modern equipment he said. Refurbishing of the hotel was overdue since the hotel was overbooked and in the year 2004 the hotel enjoyed an occupancy of 80%-90% Maniku added.
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