Kyriad hotel management brand to bring 1 m tourists to SL

Tuesday, 24 December 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

From left: Kyriad Business Development Director Brice de Guitard, Head Development and Ops Sri Lanka Dayal Fernando, Managing Director Gaurav Pallial, Chief Executive Officer Abhijeet Shrivatava, Chief Sales Officer Kurian Varghese and Chief Revenue Officer Shaleen Mathur

By Divya Thotawatte

With a promise of bringing in one million tourists to the country in five years, Orange Elephant Hospitality (OEHPL), a subsidiary of Orange Tiger Hospitality (OTHPL), launched the French brand Kyriad in Sri Lanka to provide integrated solutions to local hotel owners last week.

Orange Elephant Hospitality in its partnership with Kyriad by the Louvre Hotel Group, aims to deliver inspiration, innovation, transparency and profitability to the industry and, to make the brand one of the most preferred hotels in full service mid-scale segment in South Asia. According to OEHPL, the partnership targets to manage about 2000 rooms across Sri Lanka and is to attract over one million tourists to Sri Lanka in a span of five years.

Delivering a speech at the launching event, OTHPL/OEHPL Managing Director Gaurav Pallial said: “We do all kinds of work but we primarily do hotels and luxury. We lean towards luxury because that is where we can apply the standards that we try to bring in; we do 5-star hotels at the cost of a 3-star or 4-star, because we need to bring value to our owners. Hotel management is our prime focus, followed by other things we do on the side such as SLP management and cuisine.

“We focus a lot on the hospitality and the comfort of the guests. In terms of bringing value to the guest we aspire to always say ‘yes’ and never a ‘no’ to them and we go the extra mile to achieve that,” he explained adding that the company’s prime focus was to deliver value addition services and bring profitability to the asset owners.”

Orange Tiger Hospitality Chief Sales Officer Kurian Varghese said that in building a loyal customer base, the company had to have one on one connections with multiple segments of business, such as the travel agent market which brought in the domestic tourists as well as foreigners. He explained that it was a strength in adding value when the brand was launched in Sri Lanka. This strength would in a few years bring one million tourists to Sri Lanka, Varghese noted.

Speaking on Kyriad, Louvre Hotels International Development Director Brice de Guitard said: “We’re the second largest group in the world in terms of the most number of rooms and hotels. We’re close to 10,000 hotels and one million rooms.”

In terms of hotel management in Sri Lanka, the partnership focused on managing hotels in Colombo, Bolgoda, Negombo, Bentota, Hikkaduwa, Galle, Dambulla, Anuradhapura, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Jaffna and Passikudah, he stated.