Serendib Hotels eyeing new markets

Serendib Hotels PLC, the leisure arm of Hemas group has embarked on a more focused approach to lure tourists from new markets, in addition to its traditional European clientele. 

While Europe still remains its main target audience, the company is now venturing out to capture markets such as Japan, China and the Middle East.

“We are adding into our focus area the Chinese, Japanese and the Middle Eastern markets. This, we feel will soon be the bread and butter for Sri Lanka’s tourism sector.  We are on the path of a more focused marketing strategy where we match each hotel to a particular segment,”

 Serendib Hotels PLC Group Managing Director Ranil De Silva told Mirror Business in a brief interview.

Silva noted that while the European market has been showing a positive year-on-year growth, it is now supplemented by the Middle East, Chinese and Japanese market. 

However, it is the Chinese market that has helped in overcoming the drastic drop in bookings from the Russian and Ukraine market. In its latest annual report, the company stated that with the deepening political tensions in Russia and Eastern Europe likely to continue for some time, the recovery prospects of this key market in the near future was doubtful.

“We see big growth from the Japanese market, and the Indian market is something that is relatively new that we are going after. We have done and are continuing to do a lot of work there,” Silva noted.

Serendib Leisure together with global leisure giant Minor Hotel Group (MHG) has been conducting a series of road shows to promote their hotels and the most recent was held in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

The objective of the event was to promote the two new five star hotels of Hemas Group that is slated to commence operations in the coming months. According to Silva, both properties were received with much enthusiasm due to its location on the coastal belt, an appealing element to tourists from that region. The Middle East market which experienced a dip following ethnic tensions on the Southern coast in mid-2014, picked up during the latter part of the year, recording a 10.5 percent growth.