Taj, ITC to invest over US $ 200 m

Taj Group of Hotels, owned by the Tatas, plans to invest $150 million in expanding and refurbishing its three properties in Sri Lanka. ITC plans to invest $78.5 million in putting up a new hotel in Colombo.

Taj and ITC are among the major hotel brands that have announced plans to set up hotels in Sri Lanka. The other leading international brands include Shangri-La, Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton and Raffles.

Sri Lanka positioning itself as a "treasured island" for tourism targets 2.5 million tourists by 2016, up from 855,000 in 2011. This calls for doubling the inventory of hotels rooms, to 5,000, in the next five years, says Rohit Khosla, Director of Operations - TAL Hotels and Resorts Ltd. Khosla told Business Line last week that Taj was adding rooms in all the three properties it currently owns in Sri Lanka - Taj Samudra, Vivanta by Taj Bentota (which is a joint venture with a local partner) and Gateway, a 'mid-market'property, managed by Taj. Khosla said that the total investments in these would work out to around $150 million.

In addition, Taj has ambitions to put up more hotels across Sri Lanka so as to double the number of rooms it has by 2016 (from 600 today).

ITC's plans are yet to be finalised, but it has identified land in Colombo. Of the proposals, the biggest appears to be that of a company that is not known to be into hotels in a major way. Mohammed Mustafa Singapore plans to put up a 1,000-room hotel close to Negombo, which is near the Colombo airport.

The next biggest plan could be that of the Chinese brand Shangri-La, which plans a 661-room hotel in Colombo and a 351-room hotel in the port city of Hambantota, Shangri-La has also bought land near Tricomalee on the Eastern coast, sources say. The Hindu