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Tea Factory among the top five Factory Hotels

Raising the profile of Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, the London based The Independent recently released its review of the top five factory hotels in the world with Sri Lanka’s first theme hotel, The Tea Factory being selected as one of them.

The balance four hotels are from Spain, Greece, Italy and Australia.

Situated 6800 feet above sea level, the Tea Factory is part of Aitken Spence Hotels, Sri Lanka’s leading resort

The Tea Factory Kandapola

 operator.

The Tea Factory lies, alone and unique, on the slopes of the tea plantations at Kandapola, above Nuwara Eliya town.

Surrounded by picturesque Hethersett Estate, the imposing Tea Factory Hotel once produced some of the finest pure Ceylon tea in the world.

This acknowledgment comes soon after Tea Factory’s recognition as one of the top 100 places to stay in the world, revealed by The Sunday Times, one of Britain’s premier newspapers, in their September 2007 issue of ‘Travel’ Magazine.

There is no more luxurious way to explore Sri Lanka’s history of tea making. Stepping into The Tea Factory’s reception, and one is where the factory’s leaf drying process was carried out.

The atrium is latticed with steel and at its top, two giant wooden fans capped with brass remind you that the bedrooms are on floors that used to be the withering lofts.

The tea packing room is now the hotel’s popular bar. Where tea was sifted and graded is the hotel’s fine restaurant of class; its modern kitchen used to be the engine room.

The Tea Factory showcases some of Sri Lanka’s best attractions as one irresistible package, from lush tea gardens, culture, exquisite cuisine to exceptional service.

The Tea Factory conducts excursions to Horton Plains, Hakgala Gardens, Kurundu Oya Water Falls and visits to ancient Hindu religious sites, a miniature tea factory, a wildlife sanctuary and the spectacular Randenigala Dam.

The Tea Factory, probably one of Sri Lanka’s most awarded resorts, holds the distinction of being awarded the South Asian Architecture Award in 1995.

The hotel also received recognition and fame when it was conferred with the RICS award by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, London in October 2000 for successfully restoring an abandoned building whilst maintaining its original facade.

The Tea Factory is also the recipient of the UNESCO Asia - Pacific Heritage Merit Award - 2001 for the impressive conversion of a dilapidated tea factory into a luxury hotel complex.

BoC wins National Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Sustainability

Bank of Ceylon won two awards at the National Business Excellence Awards 2007 organised by The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka for the fourth successive year in the Best Performances Category, it won the award

for Excellence in Business and Financial Sustainability; in the Sector Category, Bank of Ceylon won the Runner-up award in the Banking sector.

National Business Excellence Awards promote superior corporate performance in the private sector.

This multidimensional annual competition recognises and rewards enterprises that have reached demonstrable levels of excellence in their diverse activities through the institutionalisation of best practices.

President of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, D. Eassuwaren said, “We want to showcase business enterprises that have made exceptional contributions to the socio-economic development of the country.

Sri Lanka needs a major contribution from the industrial and commercial sectors in order to accelerate our economic growth.

The evaluation process for our Business Excellence Awards uses a broad range of key criteria covering many facets of enterprise competitiveness.

These include important areas such as Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility, in line with similar international award competitions.”

Bank of Ceylon’s General Manager and CEO, B. A. C. Fernando, explained how the Bank was able to win the Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Sustainability: “Sustainability is an integral part of conducting business at Bank of Ceylon and reflects the responsibility we carry as Sri Lanka’s No.1 Bank.

We have undertaken the responsibility to serve the different needs of our diverse stakeholders all over Sri Lanka in a sustainable manner. We are committed to enhancing the well-being and the prosperity of all the communities within which we operate.

We provide them with the know-how, guidance and financial assistance they need to achieve their own goals, within a broader framework of equitable national development extending from urban areas to rural communities all over the country.

Lanka Bell for international ICT competition

One of two innovative software solutions developed by the IT team of Lanka Bell, Sri Lanka’s CDMA pioneer, will compete against similar products from 16 other countries at the seventh international Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) in Singapore later this month.

The product, ‘Lanka Bell SMS Gateway’ was short-listed to compete at this prestigious event following its

 success at the National Best Quality Software Awards hosted by the Sri Lanka Chapter of the British Computer Society (BCS) last month.

SMS Gateway, used to launch the first ever fixed-line SMS banking application in Sri Lanka won the Bronze award in the Communications category at these awards and was one of the few products selected to represent Sri Lanka at the APICTA competition from 26th to 29th November.

The second Lanka Bell Product that was recognised at the national competition was ‘Bell Soft Telco Solutions’ an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application which won a merit award.

“These awards reflect the innovativeness, creativity and skills of Lanka Bell’s IT team,” said the company’s Managing Director Suren Goonewardene.

“Behind the success of any Telco today is a highly skilled IT capability, and we are proud to represent Sri Lanka at the forthcoming competition.”

He said Lanka Bell’s SMS Gateway is already being used by a wide spectrum of customers in Sri Lanka.

This application enables the conversion of email in to SMS for transmission to phones and vice versa.

As a result, it makes checking account and credit card balances, exchange rates and ATM location details, as well as fund transfers and bill payments possible from phones.

It also facilitates service registration by SMS, SMS notification, SMS attendance and job ticket for field staff among others and has the flexibility to run on any hardware operating system and database.

Coca-Cola invests Rs. 600 m on new product

Maalik Aziz

Coca-Cola Sri Lanka announced the launch of ‘Minute Maid’, the worlds leading fruit juice brand to enter the local beverage market at a press conference held recently.

“Minute Maid, is the largest selling fruit based beverage in the world,” said Manish Chaturvedi, Country manager for Coca-Cola Sri Lanka and Maldives.

He also stated that Coca-Cola currently one of the market leaders for sparkling drinks, are confident of achieving the market leader status within the near future. He mentioned that the reason to introduce Minute Maid to the Sri Lankan market was because the fruit juice market is the fastest growing beverage in the country.

Coca-Cola has invested Rs. 600 million for this initiative. This investment not only includes expanding the bottling plant by adding an entirely new bottling line to accommodate the bottling of this brand.

As part of the expansion, the company has installed state-of-the-art technology, which also includes coolers and pasteurizes to ensure premium quality.

This has also increased the job opportunities available for people living in those areas.

“Minute Maid is a world-renowned brand, which sells in over 200 countries and in over 100 different flavours. Even though only Orange fruit juice is currently available in Sri Lanka, we will be introducing several other varieties for consumers to choose from soon,” said Basil Gadzios, country manager for Coca-Cola beverages Sri Lanka.

He also commented that Minute Maid is unique because they have added real orange pulp in the juice.

Minute Maid Orange is being launched in a phased manner starting with Colombo, Negombo, Chilaw, Ratnapura, Gampaha and across the coastal belt up to Galle and is available in 200 ml glass bottles.

SL Insurance walks away with bagful of awards

Ganga Pradeepa

The CEO of Sri Lanka Insurance walked away with the highest number of awards at the prestigious National Business Excellence Awards 2007, including the award for the No. 1 Insurance Company in the country.

The haul of awards guaranteed by Sri Lanka Insurance included Gold Award for the Insurance Sector, awards for the Extra Large Category, Overall, the Knowledge Integrator Category, the Capacity Builder Category and for Business and Financial Sustainability, which effectively translated into Sri Lanka Insurance stealing the limelight at the ceremony.

The CEO of Sri Lanka Insurance Nalaka Godahewa, said, last year we won five awards. This year also we won same five awards and in addition we won an award for Knowledge Integration too.

Because of the financial performance, commitment, quality of staff and their invaluable service, we won the consumers confidence. The fact that we won awards for six out of 10 criteria shows that we are a very balanced company.

“As a developing country we have a very low insurance penetration. It is only 10 per cent. But in a developed country normally it is expected to be around 80 per cent.

We have to create greater awareness amongst people to enhance their knowledge on insurance.

We believe it is our duty to take the responsibility of educating the people of the exact benefits of insurance.

Our strategy of focusing on insurance education needs have resulted in us achieving better results in the recent past.

For example this year, our growth rate is around 32 per cent which is way above the industry performance” he added.

ABEM new distributor Transpac

ABEM Instrument AB of Sweden, the pioneers in Vibration Monitoring and leading manufacturer in the world of geophysical instruments announces the appointment of Transpac International as their local distributor in Sri Lanka.

ABEM is a leading manufacturer of geophysical instruments and are well known for their Terrameters SAS series and Vibro Lock instruments.

A range of products such as Seismic, Geoelectric Imaging, One & Four Channel Instruments. Seismic Tomography. Borehole Logging and Electromagnetic Instruments together with software for 2D, 3D resistivity and IP inversion programs and data acquisition programs are now available to Sri Lanka.

Transpac International thanks ABEM for placing their trust and faith by appointing them as the local distributor and request all end users to register with the company for a continued after sales service.Registration should include name of institution, type/model of instrument, year of purchase and contact person.

EPSI introduces 16 models of ASUS Notebook
 

EPSI Computers, the sole authorised distributor for ASUS in Sri Lanka, introduced 16 models of sleek and stylish ASUS Notebook carrying 3 year warranty to the Sri Lankan market.

Group Product Manager of EPSI Computers Sankha Jayaratne stated that now, notebook enthusiasts have a choice of 16 different ASUS Notebook models to select from in different price categories.

The variety of notebooks, include models from the entry level to the sleek and stylish lifestyle series, Gaming, 3G and Business Notebooks.

Jayaratne said that all the 16 models of ASUS notebooks are now available at the ASUS Centre on display, whereby customers can experience the products first hand prior to making a decision to purchase.

EPSI in partnership with Singer Sri Lanka has also made available ASUS notebooks through all Singer Mega and Singer Plus outlets islandwide offering customers with the option of purchasing on Easy Payment plan through any of the Singer outlets.

The ‘Real Woman’ Revealed

The Cotton Collection reveals the ‘Real Woman’, a woman of substance, a multiple role player adept at multi tasking and is secure in her own ‘skin’. All three Sri Lankan women identified post a survey conducted, will be the face of the new communication strategy launched by Cotton Collection this season.

Minoli Rathnayake, Shyamalee Tudawe and Anitra Pieris will become the new faces of Cotton Collection, undertaking the challenging but exciting task of revealing that femininity, strength, power, beauty and individuality are complimentary characteristics in any woman.