By Ruvini Jayasinghe
His entry into the leisure travel industry was more a coincidence than a natural choice.Just of school with good Advanced Level Examination results, the youth from Kurunegala was hunting for suitable employment during a most tumultuous period in our country – the time of the 1971 insurgency.
With the country in the throes of political/civil turmoil, Chandra Wickramasinghe, from Maliyadeva College, Kurunegala, searched for government jobs as done back in the day, with no success due to the many political interferences.
Undaunted by the several hard knocks during his initial job hunts, Wickramasinghe decided to join The Colombo Technical College to follow a Diploma Course in Tourism. Simultaneously he joined the Ceylon Hotel School to follow a Front Office Management Course & joined the Alliance Francaise to follow a diploma course in French.
These two key career decisions way back in the early 70s set Chandra on an unfailing path to success in the Leisure Travel Industry.
After nearly four decades, Mr. Chandra Wickramasinghe is now a patron of Sri Lanka’s Leisure industry and has made an overpowering contribution to the development of eco and theme tourism to showcase our country’s bountiful bio diversity in global tourism with his chain of theme resorts.
His concepts and creations hit a niche market to which the natural/ecofriendly/rustic or colonial ambiance and bio diversity of his Theme properties are irresistible, making them among the most popular, famous and even legendary in Sri Lanka’s hotel landscape. Among them are Culture Club (now Amaya Lake under new ownership and management), Malu Malu, Aliya, Ayurvie, Tea & Experience Factory, etc.
A good student and sportsman, but not overly studious, Wickramasinghe’s genuine entrepreneur characteristics were evident even in the early days when he was still struggling to stabilize himself.
After a few stints as hotel receptionist, guest relations officer and travel executive, Wickramasinghe enrolled in a Guide Lecturers’ Course, a move that eventually took him to France where he laid the initial foundation for his success story in the Travel and Leisure industry. In France, Wickramasinghe completed a French Speaking Diploma course and returned to Sri Lanka in 1981, to open his first travel agency, Connaissance De Ceylan.
Moving away from tradition he worked with untapped markets like the trade union group travel market , incentive market & special interest tours for French outbound leisure travel.
“I came with nothing, but batted well,” said Wickramasinghe reflecting his characteristic down to earth, pragmatism. “Eventually, I became the incentives agent for four top brands in France,” he added.
In an interview with BMD, Mr. Chandra Wickramasinghe, spoke of his brand of leisure tourism, the hard hit for the industry from the global Covid 19 pandemic, and the support expected from the tourism ministry for at least a partial recovery for the scarred Leisure industry.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: How has your brand of Leisure tourism progressed and reshaped from the initial days?
A: My intention was to present our country’s natural resources and bio diversity in ecofriendly, affordable properties to certain niche markets. But Eco tourism on its own would narrow the scale, making it too much of a niche market. My vision for Theme Resorts included perspectives of our rich traditional culture and some enchantment from our colonial era.
Culture Club my first venture was entirely my concept and brain child and I tagged it as the Culture Club without BOY George!
I believe that these ecofriendly wattle and daub cabins set amidst the sprawling lush landscape of Dambulla plains, overlooking the lake, set a new benchmark for eco-friendly luxury, profiling Sri Lankan heritage and culture.
The naturally ventilated cabins with no air conditioning or fans were an initial step in promoting and managing carbon footprint, long before it became a buzz word in Sri Lanka. I even introduced bullock carts for transportation in the property.
My concepts centre around the key factors of building eco-friendly properties while protecting the culture and environment of the area.
I wanted a property in the cultural triangle, which represents both nature and culture. I was the pioneer in that area – Dambulla even before Kandalama was opened.
Apart from our overseas markets, we build a large clientele locally for Culture Club. Our advertising and promotions campaign to introduce and build this local clientele was unusual, even unorthodox for that period of time.
We advertised in Sinhala to attract the rich Sinhala speaking clientele for weddings and other large group gatherings. We worked with many popular Sri Lankan Sinhala / English radio stations to host live musical programmes at the resort premises with popular singers like Victor Rathnayaka & TM Jayarathna to attract that segment of the market.
As time went by and shareholding changed hands, I sold out my ownership of the property.
From those days of Culture Club, I have moved on to showcase more areas representing our country’s bounty. Now we have more themes like bird watching, ayurveda spas to add to our main theme of nature with culture and colonial charm.
Q: Your newer properties are comparatively of smaller proportions and more diverse. Is it a new strategy to promote niche groups?
A: Yes, our newer properties are smaller, with about 10 – 20 rooms tucked away in the cradle of nature and accessible to the culture of that area. For example, our new property Gal Oya is close to our indigenous veddah land. Our Tea and Experience Factory nestling in the foothills of Sri Lanka’s highest mountain range Piduruthalagla, in beautiful Mandaramnuwara, is actually a cosy, property on top of an actual tea factory in operation.
So now we have 11 properties with different themes from nature, culture, colonial to beach. Malu Malu another best seller in Pasikuddah represents the essence of our Indian ocean island beach ecosystem. The property reflects a fishing village or a wadiya.
Mountbatten and Glendevon are architectural delights of the charm of colonial era set in the breathtaking landscapes of the hill country while Aliya our signature property in Dambulla, represents the majestic champion of our wildlife, the elephant in a blend of contemporary architecture in minimalist style, reflecting the simplicity of rural life in the North Central region. Theme Resorts chain also include spas branded as “Ayurvie” in Sigiriya and Weligama.
Q: What is the concept of your newest property Wild Glamping Gal Oya?
A: Wild Glamping Galoya, with 10 tented luxury chalets, restaurant and infinity pool, is tucked away in a 30-acre good practice agriculture farm, in the Galoya Valley at Rathugala, close to Vedda land.
With our commitment to sustainable tourism development, this property features new normal tourism trends like Agri Tourism, Wild Life Tourism, Ethnic Tourism & Eco-Cultural Tourism. All these elements are chanelled towards the main focus on the triple bottom line of People, Planet & Profits.
Among the property’s green & sustainable initiatives is the good practice organic agriculture with drip irrigation systems and inhouse composting & traditional farming practices. While we use individual solar panels for chalets and public areas, we recycles “grey” water generated from the property to reuse for water closet flushing. Our ecofriendly designs maximise the natural light and ventilation. By outsourcing raw material like earth bricks, clay, illuk grass, cadjan and other materials from the locality for our property we support their small scale industries.
Wild Glamping Galoya is nestled in a rural, under privileged area home to Sri Lanka’s indigenous veddah community. We have employed 95% of the required staff from these neighboring indigenous communities. We got them involved in the construction of the project and thereafter in the agricultural land development, which leads to the boosting of the local economy.
Q: What is your projection of the recovery of the tourism industry post pandemic?
A: My view and the industry estimation are that at least for a partial recovery it will take at least two years to break even, if certain concessions are granted by the state.
Q: What assistance are industry stakeholders expecting from the Tourism Ministry and government in its recovery process?
A: Nearly 85% of stakeholders in the tourism industry are small and medium businesses. Restructuring their loans would be a tremendous relief to them.
My personal strategy is also to reschedule my loans and also go for novel concepts in future properties.
More travellers in niche market segments like eco, culture tourism now prefer smaller, close to nature, ecofriendly properties with limited people, personalized services and private settings. After two years of the pandemic destroying global tourism, I am yet hopeful and will continue Theme Resorts and Spas on these lines and themes.
Q: What is your perspective of good leadership?
A: Leaders are the ‘Dealers of Hope’ of the future wellbeing of social, cultural and environment standards of individuals, groups and their countries. Leaders should always foster inner peace of their people and should be not guilty of causing unrest.
Q: What organizational methods do you use, especially in lockdown periods?
A: Positive thinking of individuals can’t be locked down. We always work towards developing and making our dreams a reality. We directed our team towards getting ready for the new normal with innovative business strategies to suit the new trends of future travellers.
Even during lockdowns, our communication with our clientele did not come to a standstill. On the contrary, our communications improved with added enthusiasm, a sense of urgency and a more hope than it did during the pre-covid period.
Q: How do you motivate your staff?
A: Motivating staff happened with me sharing my life journey and showing them first-hand how innovation and calculated risks could pay back. We demonstrated the passion for the business we are involved in, without setting unrealistic expectations.
I was accessible to my staff 24 hours, to resolve not only issues related to clientele, but also those of a personal nature. I believe in the open-door management style, which makes it easy for everyone in my organization to solve their issues.
We always work towards making the team understand that we are dealing with people who pay us to make their dream holidays a reality. After all we are dream sellers. I show them my commitment towards achieving common goals.
Q: What is your advice to our youth on entrepreneurship and leadership?
If you have the talent & the knowhow of what you are going to venture into, then you should do so yourself. You should never enter partnerships, just for the sake of infusing funds to your ventures. If you need funds go to banks or financial institutions.
Always think out of the box & be innovative.
Don’t be satisfied with just the turnovers. Plan your strategies on the bottom lines to make it sustainable. BMD