LONDON-BERUWALA-AMBALANGODA-MATARA – Part 42

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

Returning Home

My special Management Observer/Trainee program in London (UK) with then the largest hotel chain in the world – Trust House Forte (THF), ended on a high note in September 1979. Mr. Geoffrey Pye, Director of Personnel for THF London Hotels and Mr. Bejaramo, Catering Manager of the 900-room Cumberland Hotel conducted two exit interviews with me. They both were very pleased with my work, as well as with the observations I had made at the Cumberland and the Regent Palace Hotel where I was a Guest Observer.

My associate from John Keells Group, Ranjith Dharmaratnam and I returned to Frankfurt to catch our charter flights arranged by Neckermann Reisen’s Kurt D. Wehner. I knew Kurt well having hosted him at the hotel I was managing – Hotel Swanee when he was touring Sri Lanka a few months ago. He reciprocated my hospitality in Frankfurt.

As a global traveller, my father had said to the family, “There is no place better than home”, every time he returned from a long, overseas trip. However, after returning from my first overseas trip to Thailand, West Germany and the United Kingdom, I did not share that view. “I feel that I can easily adapt myself to live anywhere in the world, and I would like to travel around the world and be a global gypsy”, I told my parents. “Well Chandana, it looks like you have been bitten by the travel bug. Here, look at this new publication by the largest airline in the world. Pan Am also owns the InterContinental hotel chain, where you had a part-time job a few years ago”, my father encouraged my new interest.

In the late 1970s most of the vehicles used in Sri Lanka were re-conditioned, old cars shipped from Europe and Japan. While in the UK, I bought my first car – a 1975 Ford Corolla with a vinyl top. It cost me only £350. After shipping it to Sri Lanka, I managed to get a very special licence number (11 SRI 1111). As I had the hotel manager’s car and a driver, I really did not need my own car. Therefore, I sold it to one of my uncles – M. D. Seneviratne, and made a good profit. My younger cousins thought that the car was cool and groovy!

Sharing my Learning

I was eager to apply some of the new management practices I learnt in London to the small operation I was heading in Sri Lanka. I quickly shared all relevant best practices I learnt in London and various materials I collected with my team. In settling back as a local hotelier, I introduced concepts such as longer orientations for new employees, printed training material, exit interviews for employees leaving and commenced pre-planning Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations with my team three months in advance. The usual practice in Sri Lankan hotels at that time was to begin planning the festive, seasonal events in December.

We commenced the 1979/1980 tourist season with a bang. We pre-planned a calendar of events for each month in consultation with tour leaders, returning guests and long stay guests. We recruited some very promising students of Ceylon Hotel School as our interns for the season. All of them, in a few years’ time, became highly successful hoteliers.

Before my overseas trip, I had attended a three-week long program “Techniques of Administration for Hotel Management” in Colombo, with 50 other Sri Lankan hotel managers. It was organized by the umbrella body for hotel industry in Sri Lanka – Ceylon Tourist Hotels Association. It was conducted by two professors (Hal Records and James Root) from the Cornell University, USA, which was famous for hotel administration programs. It was very similar to their well-known summer management program conducted in Ithaca, New York every year. Although academically, it was a good program, I learnt much more practical and implementable aspects of hotel management with THF in London.

Overbooking with Ken Bala

It was the usual practice to overbook hotels by around 15% leaving room for cancellations. The new Managing Director of Walkers Tours, Mr. Ken Balendra (popularly referred as “Ken Bala”) asked me if I was in agreement. “Sure, let’s do it, but during the peak months, overbooking by 15% may be a challenge as the rate of cancellations usually went down from Christmas until the end of winter in Europe”, I cautioned him. Mr. Ken Balendra who was a very charismatic, energetic and optimistic person said, “Let’s go with the 15%.”

Hotel Swanee had only 52 bedrooms and by mid-December our occupancy went up to 115% with us requiring 60 rooms to accommodate tourists who were on their way from the airport. I quickly called Mr. Balendra. He was very busy, and said, “Chandana, you are our guy in Beruwala, and I trust that you will handle it well. All the best!” I immediately summoned my team to have a quick, stand-up brainstorming session. We had no time to waste and literally had to think on our feet. Our young team came with some “outlandish” suggestions and I promptly approved them and delegated the actions. In crisis management, the teams must think “outside the box”.

By the time the guests arrived at the hotel, we had moved most of the executives to the supervisory staff quarters. We also moved two of our executives to the executive quarters of neighbouring hotels to share rooms with their executives. Those hotels had not experienced overbooking challenges. Fortunately, we had excellent relationships with all of the competitor hotels in the area. Hotel Swanee executive rooms were converted to guest rooms within an hour but these rooms were smaller and below the usual standard of guest bedrooms. To avoid receiving complaints, we carefully chose those guests (friendly, repeat guests and younger couples) who were to be downgraded! We compensated them with complimentary fruit baskets, wine, chocolates, Christmas cake as well as free tickets to beach parties and lobster buffets.

During the Christmas week, the overbooking situation got worse. I released the Front Office Manager from his duties and sent him on a one-week island round trip with the excess guests, with complimentary excursions to well-known tourist sites around the island. Once again, we chose the guests for this option carefully. Tyrone Quin, our witty and creative Front Office Manager thoroughly enjoyed this adventure. “Boss, in my next career move, I would like to become a Tourist Guide, as I found it to be a lot of fun and lucrative!” Tyrone told me jokingly when he returned after one of those special trips.

Most Successful Tourist Season

Hotel Swanee New Year’s Eve dinner dance was a big success and it did not end until 6:00 am. In consultation with the European tour leaders, repeat guests, winners of “Swanee Best Guest/s weekly competitions” and long stay guests, we made an unprecedented decision to honour our hard-working employees. Around 12:45 am, after the guests had enjoyed their first dance session of the New Year with live music and in the midst of a fireworks display, we requested the guests to leave the dance floor.

We then invited all of the staff in their uniforms to come to the dance floor and dance with the managers and supervisors. We played some of their favourite songs chosen by the union. This act was an amazing success. Guests surrounded the dance floor and cheered the dancing employees, in full approval of our appreciation of the full team. Everybody loved it. Among other progressive gestures we had made to the employees over the months, this gesture was the icing on the cake.

Unlike many other hotels in Sri Lanka, we never had any union challenges at Hotel Swanee. Managers, supervisors and staff all worked in unison like one big, happy family. 1979/1980 was the most profitable tourist season of Hotel Swanee, since its opening in 1974.

In the middle of the tourist season, as previously planned, I married my fiancée. She was 19 and I was 26. My father-in-law and the former boss (then a corporate senior executive at John Keells Group), Captain D. A Wickramasinge and his wife Neetha planned a grand wedding with 600 guests at the Hotel Lanka Oberoi. It had many connections to John Keells Group, with the Chairman, Mr. Mark Bostock as the attesting witness, my boss, Bobby Adams (Director Operations – Hotels) as the best-man, a week’s honeymoon at the sister hotel – The Village and the homecoming event hosted at Hotel Swanee. My wife soon became an “unpaid” but important member of the Hotel Swanee team, particularly in the areas of guest relations and event hosting.

Manager of three Properties at age 26

By 1980, John Keells was expanding its hospitality business by acquiring some smaller properties with management contracts. Mainly owing to a personal relationship Bobby Adams had with then Prime Minister, R. Premadasa, the group commenced managing the Prime Minister’s official residence – Temple Trees. I released one of the departmental managers from Hotel Swanee – Fazal Izzadeen to become the Manager of Temple Trees. Fazal soon became so popular with the second family of Sri Lanka, he was hardly allowed by the second lady to go home for a weekend break.

The group opened their second hotel in Beruwala, Hotel Bayroo, in the midst of various obstacles created by the village thugs. The group also commenced negotiating to take over the management of Hotel Ceylinco in Colombo. In addition to managing Hotel Swanee, I was asked to take over the Ambalangoda Rest House, to re-organize and improve its standards and to manage it.

I quickly learnt that managing a historic rest house with a deep, loyal following from the local population was a different ball game. Although there were tourists arriving for accommodations, the food and beverage operations depended mainly on the local clientele. One of our regular customers was, in my view, the most promising school Cricketer a decade ago – Anura “Century” Silva. When Anura captained Nalanda College and broke many records by scoring centuries in back-to-back games, I became his ardent fan. Anura was from a wealthy and well-connected family in Ambalangoda. My friendship with him prevented any trouble from the town.

This rest house on a small hill by the sea had a special charm. A natural, sea water pool and a long, front veranda added to the ambiance. I transferred some of our star supervisors and staff from Hotel Swanee to re-open the rest house. We focused on improving the style of management, maintenance, cleanliness, food quality and presentation and customer service. We introduced a Sunday lunch buffet with local specialties and many seafood dishes using the fresh catch from the local fishermen. This buffet became very popular with the locals.

When two leading lawyers from Colombo approached Bobby to convert one of their ancestral mansions to be a boutique hotel, I was given another additional assignment. It was a very nice and over a 100-year-old building on the Beach Road in Matara. As the house had only six bedrooms, John Keells was not interested. Therefore, Bobby and I got involved as Directors of the project with small investments. We opened it as the Beach Lodge in 1980. I continued to operate from Hotel Swanee but went to Ambalangoda and Matara once a week to oversee the operations of these two properties. Managing three small properties concurrently meant that I had to improve my delegative skills.

Bobby was impressed with my ability to multitask. He hinted that he may have to create a new post for me as his deputy at the John Keells corporate office to handle his growing portfolio. I showed interest in such a promotion. We agreed to consider it in the year 1981.