A NEW CHAPTER BEGINS… – Part 22

CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

7th International Tourism Research Conference

I was involved with the University of Colombo, 40 years ago, as a Business Administration executive student, and during the last decade as an occasional guest lecturer in their Master’s Degree program in Tourism Economics. On October 22, 2021, I participated in the seventh International Tourism Research Conference, organized by the University of Colombo. This year I had a dual role in this significant event of the oldest university of Sri Lanka – as one of the two conference co-chairs and as a panellist. As usual, Professor Suranga Silva did a very good job as the conference chair. We will collaborate again in 2022 in co-editing a British academic journal theme issue on ‘Tourism Re-building’, with case studies from around the world.

This year’s conference theme was: ‘Resilience Building and Entrepreneurial Innovation for Sustainable Tourism’. Due to the prolonging global pandemic, the annual event was presented totally virtual this year. However, a diverse pool of 34 international tourism experts presented via Zoom, enriching the quality of the conference and learning.

The panel I served focused on ‘Evidence-Based Research Findings’ with input from academics from ten countries – Argentina, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and UAE. Our panel also focused on global best practices. Throughout my career as a hotelier, academic and consultant, I have been an advocate of learning from the global best practices. It does not make any sense operating like ‘a frog in a well’. ‘Thinking outside the box’ attitude has helped me to be well-informed of the trends and be more successful in performing my varied duties as a global gypsy over the last 50 years.

Chefs Learning from the Best Global Practices

In September 1974, when I arrived at Bentota Beach Hotel to commence my new job as Trainee Executive Chef, I first reported to the Assistant Executive Chef – U. C. Jayasinghe (UC). The Executive Chef, Padde Withana (Padde), was away in Switzerland working in a reputed restaurant in Zürich for a few months. This was during the Sri Lankan west coast off-season months for tourism (May to October). When Padde returned, he commenced sharing the knowledge he had acquired in Europe with the key members of his kitchen brigade. His sharing of those best practices from Switzerland with us was refreshing not only in learning to cook Swiss dishes, but in learning to be more efficient for which the Swiss are famous.

To my delight, our learning from global best practices was not limited to Swiss dishes. The previous Executive Chefs at Bentota Beach Hotel were German and Hong Kong Chinese. As a result, I was able to learn some dishes from those two countries which had been on the rotating menus for a few years. One day, Indrapala Munasinghe, the French-trained Assistant Manager, heard that one of the guests was a French baker and that he was willing to share his skills. Quickly, a special bakery training session was arranged for us. Another day, one of my former cookery lecturers from the Ceylon Hotel School (CHS) – Kumar Thambyah, came to demonstrate an international dish that had become popular during the Münich Olympics where he had worked as a trainee cook.

As a large majority of our guests at the Bentota Beach Hotel were Scandinavian, we occasionally encouraged our Swedish Tour Leaders to teach us Scandinavian dishes. When one of the first Japanese cruise ships arrived in Colombo, Bentota Beach Hotel was booked to accommodate a large Japanese group for two days. None of us had any experience in hosting Japanese guests. The challenge was that they were not flexible with their meals. Providing Japanese meals was a pre-requisite for us to get this large room booking. With the help from the chefs in the Japanese embassy we quickly learnt to make the most common Japanese dishes sufficient for meals over two days. Our new guests were satisfied and we were richer in our gastronomic repertoire. Learning from the global best practices, helps all industries and all departments of any business.

Executive Residents at Bentota Beach Hotel

I worked with UC for only two weeks. After serving Bentota Beach Hotel for five years along with his CHS batch mates and fellow members of the Chef team – Padde and Vijitha Nugegoda (Nuga), UC had accepted an offer from the brand new, Hotel Neptune, to become their first Executive Chef. Nuga was promoted as the Assistant Executive Chef. That created a good opportunity for me. I was grateful to receive an offer to join as the number three of the kitchen, to fill that vacancy. Thank you, UC!

I was one of the eight members of the management team who lived in the executive quarters built within the Bentota Beach Hotel. Manager of the hotel, Malin Hapugoda was the only team member then married and with separate living quarters. The rest of us hung out and had all our meals together. We worked very hard and we had a lot of fun after work. Nuga and I worked split shifts covering lunch and dinner. We shared the largest room in the executive quarters which became the common meeting place for after work parties and card games with executives of nearby hotels. In between shifts we went for long afternoon walks or played games on the beautiful sandy beach in front of the hotel.

After work, most of us met at the public bar of the neighbouring, Hotel Serendib, if there were no other “important” appointments. During the tourist season (November to April), none of us hardly took any leave or weekends off. Sundays were usually, our busiest work day of the week.

In the kitchen I worked shoulder to shoulder with Padde in all sections. I was like a blotting paper, absorbing skills and knowledge from a culinary master who was then widely regarded as the best Executive Chef in Sri Lanka. I worked everywhere in the kitchen – requisitioning, butchery, advance preparations, hot range bulk cooking, à la carte cooking, managing the food service counter, buffet decorations, and my favourite duty – working at the buffets.

Sunday Lunch Buffets

Just like Bentota Beach Hotel, all other top hotels in Sri Lanka, at that time – Inter Continental, Pegasus Reef, Mount Lavinia Hyatt and Browns Beach, had large Sunday buffet lunches. The trick for success was to have a wide variety of dishes to satisfy a diverse range of tastes of the German, Swedish, British and French guests, as well as, an increasing number of non-resident Sri Lankan customers. As the best resort hotel in Sri Lanka, at that time, Bentota Beach Hotel set the standard very high.

Some Sundays, a few Executive Chefs from other hotels in nearby towns came to check out our buffet and copy ideas in the range, quality and presentation of dishes, as well as buffet decorations. One Sunday, there were around six such Executive Chefs visiting us. Our Food & Beverage Manager, Tilak Peiris jokingly complimented, “Padde, you are an inspiration to all these Executive Chefs from other hotels. You should start charging them!”

Ariyadasa, a cook, who was also the Culinary Artist of the hotel, was my regular companion to set up the buffets and work behind the buffet tables for three hours. Interestingly, he was also the Trade Union President. It was an era when most trade unions were controlled by the leftist political parties in Sri Lanka who were then an influential part of the socialist government coalition. From the brief chats while at work, I learnt a lot about the mentality of unions, worker’s grievances and union strategies, from Ariyadasa.

Friendly Competition

Hotel Neptune opened just before Christmas in 1974. It soon became the main competitor for Bentota Beach in terms of quality of the products and services. Both hotels were near each other with impressive beach fronts. Neptune’s owning company, Aitken Spence, a traditional shipping/plantation management/insurance company, was very serious in getting involved in tourism, then a new industry in Sri Lanka. In fact, they sent one of their most charismatic and energetic senior corporate executives – Ratna Sivaratnam, to open Hotel Neptune as its first Manager. He was a versatile sportsman and a friendly person. Some of us called him by his popular nick name based on his favorite food for breakfast during his school days at Royal College – ‘Roti’.

Roti was totally new to tourism and hospitality, but he was clever in hiring a good team of experienced hospitality managers to work with him as his deputies for the hotel opening. Most of the Hotel Neptune opening team came from Bentota Beach Hotel and its famous sister hotel, Coral Gardens, owned by the Ceylon Holiday Resorts. This included the Assistant Manager, Chief Accountant, Executive Chef and Stores Manager – all of whom later succeeded Roti and held the post of the Manager of Hotel Neptune ‘back-to-back’ over the next 25 years. Those four managers were later promoted to serve as Directors in the corporate office. Roti’s key visionary contribution was moving the blue-chip company into the field of tourism which it came to dominate in a short time, while directly competing with the largest group of companies in Sri Lanka – John Keells Group, later led by Ken Balendra, a class mate and rugger team mate of Roti.

Our management team from Bentota Beach Hotel frequently visited Hotel Neptune from the day it was opened. As both hotels were designed by the great Architect, Geoffrey Bawa, some aspects such as open spaces in the context of the tropical modernism concept, were common. The aim of our visits was to check their standards as well as to hang out with our friends who then worked for the friendly competitor. My friends at Hotel Neptune included my CHS batch mate, Patrick Taylor and Gemunu Goonewardena (later, a member of the Aitken Spence Hotel Company Board), who assisted U. C. Jayasinghe in the Neptune kitchen.

The two hotels also competed in sports, notably cricket, for the Geoffrey Bawa Trophy. This annual match was played during the off season, followed with an awards ceremony and a long party till the early hours in the morning. Those were fun-filled days.

Later, as the Chairman and Managing Director of Aitken Spence Group, Roti led the company to emerge as the first Sri Lankan company to become a regional hotel chain with over 20 unique hotels in four countries (Sri Lanka, The Maldives, Oman and India). In the early 1980s the group opened the first five-star resort hotel in Sri Lanka – Triton Hotel with Mahinda Ratnayake as the General Manager. In the mid-1990s it opened, one of the most iconic and environmentally friendly hotels in Asia – Kandalama Hotel, with U. C. Jayasinghe as the General Manager. Both these hotels were designed by Geoffrey Bawa. To me, Kandalama Hotel is Geoffrey Bawa’s greatest creation.

Eventually, Aitken Spence Group recruited Malin Hapugoda (Manager of Bentota Beach Hotel in 1970s) to lead their hotel company as the Managing Director, during an important decade of expansion and re-branding most of the properties of the hotel chain as ‘Heritance’.

Next Sunday, more about my memorable time at the Bentota Beach Hotel and the neighbouring hotels …