Isle of Agnes to be built in the South
The Isle of Agnes to be built in the southern coastal part of Sri
Lanka in the middle of the sea with nothing between it and the South
Pole promises to be the next level of hotel in the country's tourism
development. Prices will range from US$ 1000 TO 10,000 per night for a
suite only.
The concept comes from Prasanna W. Jayewardene who conceptualised and
developed the one of a kind "Elephant Corridor" hotel on land he owned
in the middle of the jungle by a lake surrounded by hills and mountains
with the iconic Sigiriya rock fortress as the focal point.
Almost five years after the trail-blazing opening of this hotel which
led the way to many firsts, including electric cars, plunge pools in
every suite, no fences, naturescaping, no buffets or meal times, the
Isle of Agnes will be also world class, but unique among the unique in
the world of future tourism.
Prasanna said that the first hotels he saw only from the outside were
the Queens and Suisse hotels in Kandy while schooling at Trinity College
and growing up in the hill capital. He subsequently managed these hotels
as well as the other two colonial classics Mount Lavinia and Galle Face
Hotels, at different times of his forty-year career.
Having also managed hotels and hotel groups in Malaysia and the
Seychelles quite apart from those in Sri Lanka his schooling at the
tourism institute in Klesshiem Castle in Salzburg Austria led him to
training in Switzerland, France, Pakistan and the UK.
From the first hotel he managed in Sri Lanka the Browns Beach Hotel
in Negombo in the early 1970s to the Isle of Agnes has been a very long
road.
From a sun and sand hotel catering to mass tourists arriving by
European charter planes requiring buffets and menus written daily in
German and French and entertainment programs to night clubs, the
movement to luxury stretched limousines and no menus, coupled with
underwater cameras and room doors opened by handprint has been a huge
progression. |