BOI, Accor Hotels & Club Med in talks for luxury leisure development

Chairman BOI –Sanjaya Mohottala, Tharaka Balasuriya -State Minister of Regional Co-operation, Ashok Pathirage - Chairman SriLankan Airlines, and other members of the Sri Lankan delegation with Agnès Roquefort - Global Chief Development Officer and another official from Accor Hotels 

As part of a recently concluded series of nearly twenty high-level discussions held in France, Sanjaya Mohottala - Chairman of the Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka, met with officials of Accor Hotels and Club Med respectively, to explore opportunities in luxury leisure development in Sri Lanka. 

These bilateral meetings were organized in Paris by leading private sector companies, finance institutions and government agencies, and the Chairman joined a delegation that comprised Prasanna Ranatunga, Minister of Tourism, Tharaka Balasuriya, State Minister of Regional Co-operation, and Ashok Pathirage, Chairman SriLankan Airlines.  

Accor S.A. is a French multinational hospitality company that owns, manages and franchises hotels, resorts and vacation properties. It is the largest hospitality company in Europe, and the sixth largest worldwide. Club Med is a French travel and tourism operator headquartered in Paris, specializing in all-inclusive holidays.

With Sri Lanka opening its doors and borders to tourism once again, and with potential global investors keen to tap into Sri Lanka as their next investment destination, the country envisages at a minimum, a demand of approximately 30,000 more rooms per annum across the island in the future. 

For Accor and Club Med, the potential is further heightened by both SriLankan Airlines and Air France operating three flights per week between Colombo and Paris. With all these prospects in the offing, both Accor and Club Med were upbeat about the potential Sri Lanka has to offer both as an internationally viable investment destination, and also, as one of the world’s most attractive tourist destinations, and accepted the warm invitation cordially extended by the Sri Lankan delegation to explore a progressive way 
forward together.