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Hotel Sigiriya declares record dividends

Hotel Sigiriya declared a second interim dividend of 20% recently with the 10% dividend already declared, which makes the total so far for the financial year 2002/2003 to 30%. This is one of the highest dividends paid by the hotel company in the recent past, and it is also a record for Hotel Sigiriya itself. Srilal Miththapala, CEO Serendib Leisure Management Ltd said that he was very happy and proud of the hotel's performance and he attributed several reasons for the good performance of the hotel.

He said that the hotel had undergone complete refurbishing where all the bathrooms had been completely renovated and the rooms redecorated. "We undertook this program in a phased out manner without much fanfare. We utilised internal cash flows and as such it staggered over 18 months. The hotel is designed around separate clusters of rooms, so it was easy to execute the program in this manner. In fact when we were hit with the downturn about a year back we completely slowed down the program, until the cash flow picked to restart the refurbishment", he said.

He said that right along the hotel had a clear focus to deliver comfortable, relaxing holidays where one can appreciate nature and culture at leisure. Several consultants had expressed their views, among them were Lyn Alwis and Dr. Sarath Kotagama. A Biological sewerage plant has been installed and the waste water is recycled to irrigate the garden. Many other eco-friendly practices have been implemented in the day-to-day operations. "We never profess to be a total eco-hotel. 'Eco' is a much misused word. We are a nature and eco-friendly hotel, but we have a long way to go before we can really call ourselves a full fledged eco hotel, Miththapala said.

He also attributed the good performance of the hotel to enhance occupancy, especially in the Cultural Triangle area. Hotel Sigiriya had become the base for visits to Trincomalee and the Sri Lankan and expatriate bookings have increased by 100% this year.

Hotel Sigiriya was the first hotel to be classified as a bird-friendly hotel by the Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka (FOG) and the hotel provides many activities such as guided bird watching tours, guided tours to Ritigala and Pidurangala and also a village tour to experience life in a typical Sri Lankan village.

The most important reason for the success is the dedicated team of staff according to Miththapala "We have an excellent team of dedicated and united staff, ranging throughout the hierarchy from the General Manager right down to the gardeners, who are all committed and proud of their success," he said.

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