TONIK targets high-value tourism segment with story-led villa portfolio

Since 2020, the Acorn Group has been operating across aviation, travel, logistics, leisure, insurance and education in multiple Asian markets. By 2024, the group secured a strategic partnership with CF Global, a world-class leader in logistics and supply chain management, that allows it to reshape industries, unlock new markets, and advance cutting-edge digital capabilities. 

• Aims to build a globally recognised Sri Lankan villa brand, and strengthen  island’s premium tourism positioning via structured growth and brand coherence
• Focuses on the high-net-worth travel segment, using data-driven insights from key source markets including Europe, the Middle East, the Maldives, and other Asian nations

Harith Perera and Sundararajah Kokularajah

By Shannine Daniel
TONIK, a design-led villa brand backed by the diversified Acorn Group, seeks to capture high-yield global travellers looking for culturally immersive experiences, largely through Sri Lanka’s boutique hospitality sector. 
Developed under the Acorn Group, TONIK leverages decades of regional market intelligence to address a structural gap in Sri Lanka’s independent luxury villa segment in terms of limited global visibility, inconsistent positioning, and fragmented distribution. 
Acorn Group Partner Harith Perera said the brand aligns with evolving global travel trends where authenticity, cultural depth and meaningful engagement are becoming core decision drivers rather than add-ons.
“Coming up with a value-added, expediential product is the way forward. TONIK will come up with actual yield through the heritage and culture of Sri Lanka,” Perera stated. 
“Everything happening in Sri Lanka has a story behind it and we need to share these stories. That’s what TONIK is going to do,” he added.
At its core, TONIK operates on a curated asset-management model. Instead of treating villas as standalone inventory, the brand positions each property as a distinct experiential product rooted in architecture, heritage and locality.  This helps the brand to transform individuality into commercial advantage. TONIK Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundararajah Kokularajah described the move as part of a broader tourism renaissance. 
“Even if we find a hundred or a thousand stories, we want to take those stories to an international platform. Because luxury is an experience now, and today’s heritage or yesterday’s heritage is the newest brand,” Kokularajah noted.
“TONIK is built on that idea, and it’s going to be a platform for people to bring their stories and their heritage forward,” he added.
A key differentiator lies in Acorn’s footprint across primary tourism source markets including Europe, the Middle East, the Maldives, and other Asian nations. Through its aviation and travel subsidiaries, the Group maintains insight into high-net-worth travel patterns. 
TONIK intends to deploy this knowledge to position Sri Lanka as a competitive alternative to established luxury destinations.
The brand’s initial portfolio spans the southern coast and hill country, including ocean-facing villas in Mirissa such as Mount Cinnamon and Cinnamon Museum Villa, beachfront property Villa Sayura near Galle, and a cluster of tea-country estates in Haputale, namely Garfield Villa, Garfield Bungalow and Garfield Cottage.
With a structured growth framework and access to established distribution networks, the company aims to scale into a globally recognised Sri Lankan villa brand while strengthening the island’s premium hospitality positioning.