Sri Lankan policy makers should follow the Maldivian example by opening a few dozen of the thousands inland lakes in the country to attract high end tourists willing to pay high premiums for 'privacy', a top architect said.
"People are willing to pay 200 - 300 dollars on a holiday, but if you have a privacy factor included, the premium is really high and that's how Maldives is selling," Murad Ismail, partner at MICD Associates, a
chartered architectural firm said."For a long time I hear that we are going to be the next Maldives. We can't be because we don't have private beaches."
Ismail has designed hotels in several Asian countries for Sri Lankan and international firms including luxury resort operator Four Seasons.
He is an associate of Asian architecture guru Geoffrey Bawa, who designed Kandalama Hotel, an international award winning hotel in Dambulla, central Sri Lanka, near a man-made reservoir of the same name.
Ismail says resorts in the Maldives charge as much 1,000 US dollars a night. Other low-end destinations like Indonesia that compete with Sri Lanka also have high-end private resorts inland, away from public beaches.
"If you take Four Seasons Siam, Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay, of course it's by the sea, but since it's a bay there is a privacy factor included and they are all 1,500 US dollars upwards," Ismail said.
Going Inland
He says Sri Lanka's state stance of not having private beaches is a good policy.
But with a large number of fresh water lakes as an alternative to private beaches, Sri Lanka could do the same thing inland.
Sri Lanka is dotted with thousands of man made irrigation reservoirs called 'tanks' due to a heritage of an agriculture based civilization spanning over two thousand years.
Ismail says Sri Lanka has over 1,200 sizeable lakes throughout the country, and many more smaller ones. Some of them like Kandalama dry up partly for a few months.
Researchers attempting to assess Sri Lanka's wetland resources have estimated that there are 6,000 to 8,000 tanks and about 30,000 water bodies of different types in the island.
In the Kurunegala district alone, it is estimated that there around 3,000 tanks of various sizes, built during the time of Sri Lanka's ancient kings to keep the water table in the are high.
"Water has always been a big selling point and Sri Lanka with its many lakes and waterfalls has much to offer tourists," says Ismail.
"If you take the Maldives they have 1,200 islands, of which 200 are inhabited village Islands and 111 are resort islands. The entire Maldivian economy, other than Tuna depends on those 111 islands.
"But because of certain laws, there are very high yields from those operators to the government.”
He says high end travelers are not looking for water sports or activities or 'animators' which is a feature of the mass end of the market.
"Boutique hotels don't need activities such as water sports as seen on most large scale mid end tourist hotels which are popular in Sri Lanka," points out Ismail.
"People come to boutique hotels to relax."
Exclusive Rights
In 2004, Ismail said, a boutique hotel operator was interested in building a hotel by a lake in Sri Lanka, but authorities had rejected his proposal claiming pollution as a result of the project.
He said authorities had to only look at the Maldives example for answers on how to protect the environment and also earn high revenues for the government.
To ensure privacy, and charge a premium resort operators have to given some exclusive rights and an assurance that their resort will be the only one allowed to be developed around a tank. In a large tank more than one operator could be accommodated.
If rules can assure privacy, there is an opportunity to charge premiums. Sri Lanka has been giving a tax holidays for business, which has eroded the revenue base of the island and is now drawing criticism from economists.
"We have another misconception that when a businessman comes here for investment we think he's here fort charity," says Ismail.
"He's here to make money he see's the potential, we have to make money with him as a country."
Auction
Sri Lanka could re-create a Maldives sized premium industry by auctioning exclusive rights to about 100 lakes.
In the Maldives hotel developers have to pay high rents and taxes to secure rights for resort islands. These costs are passed on to holiday makers.
The government calls for tenders to build hotels with a specified number of rooms based on the size of the island.
Prospective developers bid on a 'bed-rent', which is a minimum charge based on the number of beds a resort has or hopes to build, regardless of occupancy.
The going rate is about 20,000 dollars a year in the Maldives now, which Ismail says is high, though the numbers were much smaller when the process started. Sri Lanka he says, could perhaps attract about 1,000 to 1,500 US dollars at the start.
In addition to the bed rent, hoteliers have to pay a certain fixed fee for every night a room is occupied. In effect, only high-end tourists could support the business model, which seems to have worked well for the Maldives. However the country does not have income tax.
Ismail says many international brands are actively promoting Maldives reducing the burden on the government to promote the destination.
Regulations
Resort designers are also ordered to observe strict environmental and ecological rules when building and operating the resort.
If a tree was uprooted for example while building the resort, it had to be replaced at some other location on the island. Coral reefs could not be harmed and special boats had to be used to bring in supplies.
The Maldivian resorts even have their own waste water treatment plants.
These controls have helped maintain high standards, attracting tourists willing to pay a premium for the exclusivity offered.
Sri Lanka already has a series of regulations, which would help preserve the environment. But there were other rules like restrictions on building on stilts which could be re-examined.
He says lake resort owners would find it in their own interest to preserve the lake.
"If you are given a lake or part of a lake for 25 years without any other neighbors except the villagers and you had to get your return in those 25 years would you spoil the lake?" asks Ismail.
"You will enhance the place whatever way you could as the government tells you to because that's your biggest selling point."
Unique Flavour
Kandalama for example has won international awards and certification standards.
Ismail says some of Sri Lanka's traditional construction materials and help exceed international standards such as the US LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) green building system.
The movement of local villagers or their activities would not be restricted in any way and would be part of the experience.
"I don't think fisher folk is an issue, I don't think the village is an issue," says Ismail. "It's another holidaymaker that's the issue."
He says boutique resort norm around world is the Balinese architecture.
As Sri Lanka tourism recovers with the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, new and unique travel experiences could build the momentum the industry needs.
When the architecture is the same everywhere in the world you think you are in Bali or you don't know where it is because it's all similar," says Ismail
"We have an opportunity now to give what we think is contemporary to the world."
Image courtesy of lakdora.com
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