Srinith De Silva, CEO of Aitken Spence Resorts (Middle East) talks about the properties his company owns and operates in Oman and the efforts that go into promoting Oman as a destination

What are the hotels owned and managed by Aitken Spence Resorts Middle East in Oman?

Al AFalaj Hotel is 100-per cent owned and managed by Aitken Spence Resorts (Middle East), which is headquartered in Colombo, Sri Lanka. We have 23 hotels worldwide including in Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Oman. In the Sultanate, we purchased Al AFalaj Hotel in 2016.  In addition, we manage Desert Night Camp in Al Wasil, Sur Plaza Hotel in Sur and Al Wadi Hotel in Sohar.

How has been 2019 for the properties you manage in terms of occupancy?   

In 2019, we have been doing well, compared to 2018. The forward bookings for the winter are looking promising. If the trend continues, we will be having a very good season ahead in all segments.

Recently there has been a marginal drop in certain segments such as the corporate, but when you look at leisure, there has been a significant increase in the number of tourists arriving in Oman especially from Germany, Italy, France etc.

We are witnessing a surge in the demand for our Desert Night Camp in Al Wasil. Just before one and a half years back, we added 25 more rooms, catering to the increasing demand. And every year our occupancy rates are amounting to 80 to 90 per cent. Ours is a world renowned product as we are considered one of the best desert resorts in the world. Therefore, the demand is going up day after day. Our guests coming to Muscat go for a round trip covering Muscat, Sur and desert night and come back for one more night to Muscat.

What are you doing to promote Oman as a destination?
We, as a group, promote Oman significantly in different markets. We have a strong presence internationally in leisure tourism, especially in our capacity as a joint owner of TUI, Germany. We also promote via social media and conduct new destination roadshows especially in the emerging markets such as China, Russia and Scandinavian countries. We have marketing representatives in these countries.  We cash in on this expertise to promote Oman in all these countries.  These campaigns have been very fruitful and our numbers have gone up.  We are doing extremely well in the leisure segment, despite a drop in the corporate segment owing to the fall in oil prices.

What are the key challenges facing the industry? 
Getting visa clearance for recruiting skilled staff with professional qualification and technical expertise in the various hospitality services is one of the key challenges we are confronting. We don’t have all these expertise available in Oman. For example, at the desert camp, when we opened a spa, we are facing the shortage of trained therapists specialised in professional massaging.

However, we have a growing number of Omani workforce cutting across divisions and departments. We have Omani employees from bellboys to senior managers. We have Omanis who scaled new heights in their profession starting from the lower rung of the ladder. We would send some of them to Sri Lanka once in a year for training. We have also introduced various training programmes for them. However, education needs to be more industry-focused enabling them to offer more services.

Please tell us about your future plans… 
Currently Al Falaj hotel is going on a complete renovation. The refurbished property will be rebranded as Adaaran Muscat, our Maldives brand. The project is going on and we have almost completed 50 per cent of the work. The renovated and rebranded hotel will be ready in a year’s time.  We will be refurbishing the entire property-all the 152 rooms, lobbies, pubs, conferences halls, swimming pools etc.