Resilient Sri Lanka can bounce back post Easter Sunday setback: Galadari GM

By Charumini de Silva

History has amply proved that Sri Lanka is a resilient nation and the country with the right mindset and initiatives can bounce back stronger post Easter Sunday setback according to Galadari Hotel Colombo General Manager Sampath Siriwardena.

Knowing Sri Lanka had gone through many crisis situations over the past decades, Siriwardena said he had confidence in our resilient people. “We are a nation of real resilient people; we bounce back fast and it’s in our blood. How soon we will bounce back as a trade will all depend on how well we manage the crisis. The crisis has to be managed well by all stakeholders,” Siriwardena told the Daily FT in an interview. 

Being in the trade for the past 45 years, he had seen many riots and uprisings throughout his career. “In 1987 when the Hilton was opened I was working there and I do remember soon after the opening of the hotel, buses were burning right in front of the hotel. Few years later we saw the LTTE and lived through their terror for almost three decades, where bombs were going off all over the country,” he recalled.

He said Easter Sunday terror attacks were an act of an international terrorist organisation, where many countries such as France, Belgium, and Indonesia also got hit and had now bounced back.

He insisted the Government to get together and in one voice let the world know that Sri Lanka is a safe destination to travel, while the tourism authorities, hotels, airlines and travel trade work together to offer great packages to entice travellers. 

Siriwardena saluted and highly appreciated all security forces for ensuring safety in the country within a short period and for being the living gods of the nation.

Single digit occupancy rates

Noting that this was the first time ever the hotels were attacked by a terror group in Sri Lanka, he said that even during LTTE period the hotels had a fairly alright occupancy rate. “We had occupancy even during the three decade civil war with the LTTE. With the Easter Sunday extremist terror attacks for the first time in history, we fell to single digit occupancies and it was daunting. There was an 85% to 90% drop in our occupancies immediately. In addition all banquet and restaurant businesses were also severely dropped as many of the events were postponed by corporates,” he said.

He emphasised that the perception of the people has to change and get back to their normal lifestyles. “We see that the fear factor is still there in gathering at the big places. We were single digit occupancy soon after Easter Sunday terror attacks, but it has now moved to double digits,” he added.

If Sri Lanka can pull together the major MICE tourism event CITES which got postponed to September, he was confident that the destination will bounce back and prove to the world Sri Lanka is resilient and we are ready to welcome anybody.   

Concern on employment

Siriwardena assured that they were not thinking of laying off any of their employees, but that they had imposed a freeze on hiring people. “When occupancy was not as much as we expected for most areas like housekeeping, kitchen stewarding and certain indirect guest contact areas; we used to outsource staff from another private company and those were immediately stopped after the Easter Sunday terror attacks. We request those services as and when we want. There were also casual staff working for banquets and when the business dropped we stopped them as well. However the permanent staff is not affected and we don’t want to lay them off because we survived with their loyal service,” he pointed out.

Given the situation, he said that they might not extend the contract period of some employees. “We might not extend certain contracted employees where we hire them for a period of one year given the current situation. We now have to assess whether we can still afford to keep our contract employees for any longer,” he added. Pointing out that it has not come to that level so far thanks to the relief package that the Government has come up with as well as from their earnings before he said the hotel might not take any drastic steps if the industry experiences a quick recovery. 

Siriwardena was also concerned as to whether the hotel could support its staff till the service charge improves to at least a moderate level. “I am very concerned as to how we can help the staff. From the figures we see, I think there will be a 50% drop in the service charges with immediate effect. The staff was earning around 30% as service charge, it will now drop to about 18% to 15%,” he said.

In terms of the financial assistance that Government announced he said it was a great move, but was concerned that there was no mention on moratorium for the employees. “The service charge has dropped almost by 100% in the industry and they are now getting the basic salary which is very low for them to sustain the same lifestyle where they have many commitments such as bank loans. As a hotel we are concerned about our staff and my Ex-Co have decided on some of the relief that we can offer to them in this dark hour. We have come up with many internal measures where we have frozen the festival advances they took for New Year for the next four to five months. As a hotel we didn’t have a product to be proud of, but we were always scoring high on our service. Hence it is our duty to safeguard them for their loyal service for the last so many years,” Siriwardena stressed.

In addition he said they provide the staff essential goods at its welfare shop without any mark-up price, so it will help their families in some manner.

Revival measures

“I strongly feel that by December we will bounce back given there are no incidents. Particularly the months of December and January we have a lot of our Sri Lankan expatriates coming for holidays. Even if you have New Year’s Eve dance, around 50% of the crowd is filled with these Sri Lankan expats especially from countries like, Australia, Canada, the US and UK. I have so many emails pledging support that they will be back in force and for a longer period of time this year,” he said.

Although there will be few regular tourists for this winter, Siriwardena on a sad note said it won’t be as before. However, if the adverse travel advisories are lifted or soften by then he asserted that Sri Lanka could have some hope.

“People cannot be scared and run away from this situation and give in to a handful of terrorists. Everyone has to support one another and the money circulation has to happen. With the support of all stakeholders I am confident we will bounce back even better than before. I call on all Sri Lankans and foreigners who had visited Sri Lanka to please visit the hotels and help the employees and our nation in this hour of need,” Siriwardena urged.

Opportunities through crisis

Looking at opportunities through crisis period, he said Galadari Hotel is also investing a total of $ 15 million to refurbish its property completely by 2021. It is the first time the hotel is undergoing a refurbishment since its opening in 1986.

“We are making maximum of this low occupancy period to go ahead with our refurbishments which was already on our cards. The refurbishment will be done in two phases where we hope to complete the entire project by 2021,” he added.

According to him the hotel has already started refurbishing its 427 rooms, which is slated to be completed by January 2020. The second phase of the refurbishment includes the lobby, reception, shops and the restaurants, which the management believes to commence by February 2020 and complete by latter part of March or early April 2021.

“As there are hardly any guests, the noise factor is not there and we can complete our refurbishments much faster than we anticipated,” he added.

Siriwardena said with the refurbishment project of the hotel, they hope to have an all-day dining, one bar and three restaurants with different concepts.

“At the last Board meeting we thought it was a good time to go ahead with our pre-planned refurbishment project during this low occupancy time. We are hopeful that the country will be ready in about 18 months’ time and by that time we are coming up with a brand new property for all our guests,” he stressed.

The total investment which is around $ 15 million is funded fully by Galadari Brothers, Dubai and has no intentions of going for any bank facility or using Government announced financial relief packages in this regard.