Q: What properties are owned by Citrus Leisure? Could you explain a bit on each of them?
A: Citrus Leisure currently owns a hotel in Hikkaduwa and plans to further expand its number of hotels and resorts to Waskaduwa and Kalpitiya in the years ahead. Citrus Hikkaduwa has around 90 rooms and is one of the best locations to have a visit and spend some quality time, which will certainly leave the guests with memorable moments. Almost 40% of construction is completed in our Waskaduwa project and will be opened by the mid next year.
By 2014, we will be opening the hotel in Kalpitiya of which the construction will commence next year. Citrus Leisure owns a huge land extending to 78 acres in Kalpitiya on which this resort will see its construction. The land is bordering the sea, as well as a river is flowing across it and we will be introducing a wide range of water sport.
Q: What can you say about the performance of Citrus Leisure PLC throughout the recent years?
A: Citrus Hikkaduwa has been performing good overall since the time we took over the hotel, which only had 50 rooms. We pumped in our investments and we went into a complete refurbishment in April last year to the hotel and thereby the number of rooms was increased to 100 rooms. We are having healthy occupancy rates as well and performance wise Citrus Hikkaduwa is doing well. Right throughout the year, we have had 75% occupancy and currently there is around 85% occupancy in the hotel, and during off-seasons we have managed to achieve 60% occupancy. This is the first Citrus hotel and it is very successful.
Q: What were the recent investments to the resorts?
A: Identifying the fact that Sri Lanka has a shortage of the number of rooms in relation to the target that is set to be achieved in 2016, we are on the lookout for good blocks of land to build more hotels. Other than the recent investments on the refurbishment there were no major investments. But we are looking for feasible investments.
On the other hand, we are planning to build a hotel in Pasikuda. We are in the process of clearing the land and we will start constructing the hotel in 2014.
I am not sure whether this is already published in the news section but thought to highlight some information again.
Full articles is available in
http://www.ceylontoday.lk/22-20331-news-detail-citrus-leisure-eyes-new-investments.html