Nestled along the mesmerising Indian Ocean and overlooking breath taking stretches of palm-fringed beaches and a winding river, Cinnamon Bentota Beach is the ultimate tropical paradise destination (Photo: India Outbound/Varsha Singh)
Radhey Tawar
Why are you here in India today?
India is the number one market for Sri Lanka. For us, it is the number one market, as Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts, both for Sri Lanka and for Maldives. Since I have taken over as Chief Commercial Officer for Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts, we wanted to make sure that we are here, first say hello to our main clients and the partners. The numbers are growing in terms of Indian travellers. MICE tourism is something which is really attractive for the country and for us as well. Overall, from a tourism point of view, almost 15 to 20 pc travel is the MICE travel that comes to Sri Lanka.
What is your total inventory?
We are the hospitality operator with the largest inventory in Sri Lanka. We have 11 hotels and resorts, three in Colombo and eight in other parts of Sri Lanka and then there are four resorts in Maldives. In Colombo, we have approximately 1,000 rooms within the three well-established hotels and in resorts, another 800 rooms. Cinnamon Bentota Beach is our flagship property in Bentota.
We are opening Cinnamon Life Integrated Resort, which is an 800-room property along with an attached mall and a casino operated by an international operator. So that’s something that also we are here to talk about to our partners. Sri Lanka already is a wedding destination, especially for Bentota, but also Colombo. It will give us the opportunity to bring bigger MICE and weddings to the country when we open that resort with one of the largest meetings or events spaces in the country.
What is the total inventory and general occupancy?
Total inventory across the two countries is 2,500 rooms. And for general occupancy, let me split Maldives and Sri Lanka. Maldives has been running at a high 70s over the last six months. Maldives as a destination is almost flat in occupancy now, there is no low season or a high season, the occupancies are the same. In Sri Lanka, I think since May is when tourism really picked up. In Colombo, occupancies between the three hotels are ranging between 50 pc to 70 pc. For resorts, similar, around, it could be 40 pc to 60 pc or 70 pc, so which is very, very healthy right now.
What are your top five markets and market share?
India, of course, is number one. For Cinnamon, out of the total Indian travellers, we get about 16 pc to 18 pc of the Indian share. We want to grow it to more than 20 pc, and with the growing inventory, and our efforts here with the global sales, we are going to pass these numbers next year. So, India is number one right now.
Number two market for the country is the UK, which is very pleasant to see because after a long time, the UK is coming back. Russia has been there as normal. China has come in the top 10. But also Germany and France, these are the main markets which are coming back to the country now.
As for Maldives, India is the number one market and then Germany, UK, France, Russia and China. So basically most of the shares are similar, it doesn’t really differ a lot. We want to grow more of our Indian share because we think that we have more opportunity in growing our Indian share in Maldives than we do in Sri Lanka. Pre-Covid, our focus was more on the European markets, now we are looking at more diversification in terms of our guests into four different resorts.
With Indian markets, how would you break up the segments?
Almost 50 pc to 60 pc is leisure. Then 15 pc to 20 pc MICE, and the rest corporate and individual travellers. For Colombo, MICE is very, very strong, especially that’s also mostly coming from India. When you go towards the resorts it is more weddings that are coming up.
Which of these markets has the maximum potential to grow in India?
For Cinnamon, we see two main segments, one is MICE, of course, and for the reasons I mentioned before, from our perspective, we have different and newer products to accommodate in the market, as I said with Cinnamon Life Integrated Resort. Also at the same time, the wedding segment is something that we do extremely well in. At Cinnamon Bentota Beach, we have had six Indian destination weddings this year and they are all coming from within India, UK, Europe, UAE, Africa, so families living there are coming to India and having the weddings here.
Who are you competing with?
In Bentota, I think we have three or four world-class resorts, there is Anantara, there are two or three Anantara resorts there and then there is the Taj, which is a legendary property as well, very well-established, very well known in the Indian market for obvious reasons, being a homegrown brand. So these are the three or four resorts there, which I think we always hear how our customers talk about when they are comparing themselves to us.
When is Cinnamon Life Resort opening?
Cinnamon Life will be opening in the second half of 2024. Apart from 800 rooms, it has 15 F&B outlets, and then 8,000 sqm of meetings and events space. And then there is a mall attached next to it, which is also open at the same time. And there is an international operator-run casino which will be the largest casino in the country, and it is all in Downtown Colombo.
What is your marketing strategy in India?
For most of the business in Sri Lanka, business is driven by the travel partners, or the travel agents, or the MICE operators and wedding planners. So whenever we do any strategic alliances or marketing opportunities, we want to make sure that we are working with those partners at the same time, anything that the country is doing so for example, Sri Lanka tourism, they do a lot of road shows and lot of fam trips that comes to the country in conjunction with SriLankan Airlines.
What is Cinnamon Air?
Cinnamon Air is our sister company that operates domestic air taxi flights. You can charter it or book as an individual as well if you want to go from the airport to Colombo airport to Bentota or to Trincomalee. These are 8-10 seater amphibians aircraft. We run it in codeshare with SriLankan, so you can book a single ticket from Mumbai to Colombo and then onwards to Bentota or other destinations within Sri Lanka. It is a great option for those who want to save time. We see a good demand for these when there are small groups who come to Sri Lanka for celebrations.
