Jetwing Jaffna, the seven-storey 55-room, star class hotel in the heart of the city, will invest over Rs. 500 million to add the much awaited new wing to the hotel.
K. Balasundaram
Also known as Jetwing Yarl, the hotel was the first star class hotel to be opened soon after ending hostilities in 1976 on a 35 perch land purchased by former governor of the Central Bank N. U. Jayawardena and sending out a positive signal for investors.
Creating another landmark in the peninsula, the hotel will also introduce Jaffna’s first international Spa under the second phase of development,” said MMBL- Pathfinder Group of companies, Director / CEO K. Balasundaram.
A trendsetter, Jetwing Jaffna will also build family rooms under the second phase of development while a swimming pool too would be built.
He said that since the building of the hotel they also employed female staff to the property from the region. “This initiative opened up the leisure sector for the first time to women staff from the region and today we have around 20% female staff in the hotel.”
He said that with Jaffna having close connectivity with India direct by air with Chennai Jaffna daily flights and sea via KKS ferry service they see a healthy emerging tourism trend for Jaffna.
Discussions are also in progress to link India and Sri Lanka via road and rail which will bring more tourists and investors from India.
“We also see the diaspora investing more in Jaffna and this too will bring us more travellers and it is to meet the demands of these travellers we are reinvesting in the hotel and adding more infrastructure.”
The hotel was originally intended to be a fourteen-storey 76 room hotel, but due to regulation during the time had to be downsized.
Owned by Yarl Hotels, a joint venture between Jetwing Hotels and MMBL Group (Mercantile Merchant Banking Limited), the Rs. 1 billion hotels also saw Regency Teas, Leon Holdings in the Netherlands also coming as investors. “We have to thank the investors for taking a bold risk and moving away from the concept of ‘wait and see’ and invest in this project.”
