Elephant Reach to add more hotels

Indunil HEWAGE

Elephant Reach Hotel, Yala which is a subsidiary of Lanka Hotels and Travels (Pvt) Ltd is on the look out to construct two more star class hotels.

A SriLankan Airline stewardess is seen presenting the official tee shirt of the SAP Surfing Championships to SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe.  Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe

A lifestyle hotel with 14 rooms in Preethipura, Wattala is to be constructed shortly investing Rs 60 million as the initial stage of the project and another star class hotel will be set up in Kalkudah Trincomalee with a substantial amount of investment, Lanka Hotels and Travels (Pvt) Ltd Operations Director, Malinga Fernando said.

The Elephant Reach consists of 24 chalets and 11 standard rooms and at the moment, the hotel is going through a massive refurbishment to upgrade the existing rooms.

In addition another 18 rooms with modern amenities will be added to the Elephant Reach Hotel shortly and the refurbishment process and the construction of new rooms will cost Rs 45 millions.

A spa and museum, agro farm will also be built in the present hotel premises with around Rs 20 million investment.

The hotel will aggressively promote agro and spiritual tourism which have an enormous potential to take the entire tourism industry to a better level. The hotel is enjoying nearly 75 percent occupancy rate and see a satisfactory growth in tourist arrivals from the Middle East, Europe and Russia.

The hotel management is discussing with several air taxi providers in Sri Lanka to get their service to transport tourists to the hotels.

It is high time for the government to develop the civil aviation industry to better reap post war opportunities in the tourism industry, Fernando said.