Aitken Spence Hotels go for 500-room property in Nilaweli

Shirajiv SIRIMANE in London

Aitken Spence Hotels would invest on a 500-room property in Nilaweli, Trincomalee early next year.

Managing Director, Aitken Spence Hotels, Malin Hapugoda said on Wednesday that this would be a mixed development hotel project where they would offer luxury Villas, standard rooms and apartments. “We already have a 100-acre property and I think this is the time to invest in it”, he said.

Having completed over three decades in the hotels industry, Aitken Spence has a chain of luxury hotels and resorts in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, India and Oman. “We are planning to build apartments sell and manage them,” he said. Construction work on the hotel project would get under way next year and is scheduled to be completed by 2012. He also outlined plans to construct a business hotel in Jaffna next year. He said that they would also invest 25 million US dollars jointly with Six Senses Resorts and Spas to build a new hotel in Ahungalle.

“This project was on hold for five years due to the war situation in the country. Now the investor is pressuring us to go ahead with this project,” he said. Six Senses Resorts and Spas management and development company with properties in six countries including the Maldives, Thailand, Vietnam, Oman, Jordan and Spain is a leading hotel operator in the world and their presence in Sri Lanka would give additional value to the destination.

“Ten acres of land for the project is already available next to the five star Heritance Ahungalle and we are looking at constructing 57 individual ultra luxury units,” he said. The group would also operate two individual Spas in these two new hotels.

Aitken Spence would also invest on a 15-20 Backwater Villas hotel project in Madu Ganga next year. “When these two properties are ready the total room strength in Ahungalle area would be over 220.”