By Joseph Thavaraja
Dr Meitner Doering, the Chairman, CEO and the equity-holder of Aquarius Resorts Pvt Ltd is a German expat-entrepreneur who has made Sri Lanka his home for the last 35 years. Dr Doering believes that his proven formula of leveraging the island’s intelligent human resources with his own instinct driven business decision making and staying away from business proposals that go against his conscience, shall unlock victory for him again as he boldly pioneers Sri Lanka’s newest wellness tourism concept- “Sri Lanka, my Second Home.”
Let’s talk about yourself…
I am in Sri Lanka for the past 35 years. I am the majority shareholder, CEO and Chairman of Aquarius Resorts Pvt Ltd, specialized in sports tourism employing around 60 persons. We are specialized for German sports clubs-5-7 divisions in soccer and other team sports.
The other two sectors we operate are marinas and senior citizen resorts. Global senior citizen market consists of baby boomers, which is the segment we are focused on. Annually 300,000 seniors and pensioners are migrating out of Germany to the neighboring countries such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. No one is coming here since no offers are made from here. We can package Sri Lanka for them highlighting the positive human capital, a democracy with an open market policy. Sri Lanka has a good caregiver system with qualified nurses and a strong system at a fraction of the cost in Germany. Therefore a great place for senior citizens looking for care, safety, good food, good weather, and language. Lonely Planet too awarded Sri Lanka as the best travel destination for 2019. We allocated a very spacious 2.5 acre land in Naththandiya bordering lush paddy fields for the senior citizen resort. We started marketing through www.srilankamysecondhome.com
Explain about the new concept that you are pioneering here…
This resort is exclusively for above 60 aged Germans, Austrians and German speaking Swiss citizens. They see Sri Lanka as their second home after retirement. There’s a good market for retired senior citizens. Our market studies too show that there are good ground conditions here. Tourists coming to Sri Lanka feel welcomed with positive attitudes-this is not seen in many other tourist destinations. 90% of the tourists coming here are very positive.
This hospitality is a cornerstone in our marketing strategy. The senior citizens –retired with good disposable funds-we target are not staying here for just two weeks but staying for good-some will stay for six months while others, for one-two years.
One reason for EU senior citizens picking here is the ongoing migration into this region from the Gulf (refugees), etc., who are changing the region’s outlook, which is triggering a reverse migration from Europe to outward destinations. Sri Lanka, with its positives such as a peaceful environment, friendly people, etc., is a key choice for these senior citizens.
Aquarius Resorts is a group and one section serves global senior citizens who have retired. [write-up abt resort here….]
Your experience with Sri Lanka and lessons learnt so far?
I started in Sri Lanka as the National Coach for the Sri Lanka Table Tennis team on the invitation by former Minister Nanda Mathew. I also coached German Champions for many years. With this background I came to Sri Lanka and stayed here connected to Sri Lanka table tennis. Later on Minister Festus Perera formed Sri Lanka – German Sports Association, and followed the concept of inviting German teams here to meet local teams and play.
Almost 5000 Germans came to Sri Lanka and more than 500 Lankans went to Germany, creating a great exchange program. I was the Chairman of Sri LankaGerman sports exchange program. Subsequently we built the first sports hotel in Sri Lanka, and Sri Lanka became my home. I found there was a need to give accommodation facilities to the visiting German teams due to lack of such and even the accommodation provided to them fell short of standards. That’s when I opened the three star sports resort in Marawila in 1984. With that my business career began. We thereafter diversified but the core business always remained Team Sports tourism-not individual sports such as golf, tennis or diving.
How do you keep yourself motivated?
By identifying the situation, environment different here compared to Germany, different mentalities, methods, and diverse attitudes. You need to adapt to the ground situation here, first, before adopting your own methods in Sri Lanka. You can’t expect Lankan employees to work the same way as German employees but on the other hand, I do not have to pay the German salary scales here. Challenges were here initially-such as the ethnic conflict, JVP riots… but we survived all that-after all, you have to understand that defeat is part of sports otherwise you cannot do sports. Same for Business. When you as a Sri Lankan do business in Sri Lanka you have a backup-friends, family.
But when a foreigner does it here, it is a one man show and exposed to predators. This fate befell many foreign entrepreneurs who opened businesses in South of Sri Lanka-and several of them left Sri Lanka since they could not face it. This is same for Lankans going abroad and starting a new business-they too will face the same situations. I was able to overcome these storms and am still here. Even if you are a local entrepreneur, you still have to understand and face attitudes of the local market. Punctuality, reliability and loyalty are highly valued by Western entrepreneurs. These attitudes have been inculcated in them due to the ground conditions they faced-such as annual winter seasons –over centuries. These restrictive ground and climatic conditions were not so severe in Asian regions, and Asian entrepreneurs grew up differently due to easier climatic and environment conditions.
How do you keep your staff motivated?
I observed that female staff are more responsible than male staff. That is why 70% of my staff are female staff. This leads me to achieve better results, which in turn motivates the staff. This behavior is not limited to Sri Lanka and South Asia but seen across the world. Perhaps the feeling of being a responsible mother attributes to working well. I leverage this gender aspect to advance and develop my business operations. I would like to reveal that some expatriate investors think the same way.
What are the other Sri Lankan resources that you are leveraging for your operations and strategy?
Sri Lanka received independence only in 1948 and just seventy free years is not sufficient for a country to grow and mature. It is the same for any country emerging from colonialism. For example, the skyscrapers emerging in Colombo have been constructed using foreign resources. It takes two to three hundred years for any country to achieve a developed status. Still, there are useful factors that help operations in Sri Lanka. The trustworthy mentality of the Sri Lankan workforce cultivated over generations, in comparison to other South Asian countries is one. Also a workforce that awaits for your instructions to proceed with activities, instead of running on its own. A hierarchical, rather than a flat organizational structure works in Sri Lanka. Also Lankan employees are very intelligent, which is another positive- in that once they are taught something they are capable of taking over on their own. For example, I have been busy to start a new marina in Sri Lanka but could not find one local engineer to design it. Marinas are not easy to design and build. But if a Lankan engineer is taught of such a design through a few marinas, thereafter he will construct marinas on his own. Therefore there is good capacity available here. But growth and development of Sri Lanka is a natural process like in any other country-you cannot expedite.
Do you tend to mix business with pleasure ?
I see many of our behavior patterns are interchangeable with business life though it does not mean a total mixing of both.
How do you see your success here in Sri Lanka? I don’t take myself to be very important-don’t see myself as such. Even if we see ourselves as great successes, years from now, no one will remember about any of us. Taking everything simply is one of my principal philosophies-nothing is too important and everything is gone one day. My drive is not to make millions-never make that your important goal. But what you do, create with these millions are what is important.
How do you define leadership?
It’s about your decisions. The decisions you take could be by your intellect or by your intuition. When you see leadership seminars, they are focused on analytical, rational, factual and cognitive aspects but not on your gut. Your instinct is more important. I work with intuition. Henry Ford of Ford Motors, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Boeing CEO Bill Allen were among business leaders who worked with instinct and won in business. Even a Chairman of Deutsche Bank said his success was due to listening to his instinct first, rather than his well-informed advisors. He was a master of statistics but said he only followed his inner voice in taking decisions. I too have been proposed to various lucrative businesses in my past such as prawn farming but I did not go into them. Even if I can make money, I don’t want to do things against my conscience. You also have to be religious – and I am. Nothing goes wrong when I follow such guidance.
What is your message to budding entrepreneurs?
Follow your inner voice and do what your inner voice says. Follow this but not the voice of others declaring what you should be doing. bmd