John Keells to enter boutique hotel market with ‘Cinnamon White’

The country’s largest leisure sector operator, J o h n K e e l l s Holdings (JKH), will be entering the boutique hotel sector in the near future, under the branding theme ‘Cinnamon White’. “Our brand strategy has four tiers and the fourth tier is the boutique end of which we don’t have products at the moment but which will be branded as Cinnamon White,” John Keells Holdings Deputy Chairman Ajit Gunawardene told Mirror Business.

The Cinnamon Hotels website has listed boutique hotels as coming soon. Gunawardene noted that the future properties in the highly successful lean luxury model would continue to be branded ‘Cinnamon Red’, in addition to the rustic luxury branding of ‘by Cinnamon’ and the flagship Cinnamon luxury hotels. Gunawardene noted that each tier has its own brand and service standards but does not rank ‘above’ or ‘below’ the properties in the other tiers, since they are verticals.

However, he noted that the boutique hotels could be expected to have much larger rooms than others. He said that the group has not yet planned any specifics into Cinnamon White. “We haven’t decided yet. It’s too premature to even ask about the number of properties,” he said. However, he noted that the vertical was put in place during the major branding discussions for the Cinnamon brand, which took place a few years ago, which had also resulted in all JKH properties being rebranded into Cinnamon hotels last November. Recently, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that greater focus would be placed on boutique hotels to take the tourism industry forward. However, boutique hotels are likely to get stuck in the one to two-star classifications under the latest regulations due to the restrictions in room numbers and other infrastructure when classifying hotels.

Tourism, Land and Christian Affairs Minister John Amaratunga has pledged to bring this to the attention of policymakers. While boutique properties are usually booked through the Internet and are well regulated due to user reviews, travellers who may filter their options based on higher star classifications may not become aware of high-quality boutique hotels.