Politicians, red tape thwarted region’s first sail powered luxury cruise ship project in SL
A golden opportunity to have the regions first sail powered luxury cruise ship to the Sri Lanka hospitality sector was blown away due to greedy politicians and huge red tape that prevailed around five years ago, said a trendsetter in the Sri Lankan hospitality sector, Madulkelle Tea and Eco Lodge, Kandy Chairman Philippe Gomez.
In a special interview with Daily News Business the French national Gomez, revealed that he first visited Sri Lanka three decades ago as a part of his European tour, fell in love with the country and had visited the island nation many times and invested in Sri Lanka’s first luxury glamping tourism venture in Madulkelle in Malale on a 24-acre tea estate he bought.
“This investment was done during the peak of the LTTE war and at a time let alone foreign investors but even locals were not investing. I had confidence that the Sri Lankan tourism sector would bounce back and it did. I later wanted to invest on my cruise project, ‘Pearl 111 Yacht’ which is a 9 cabin luxury boat with a restaurant and only such one in the region and was planning to anchor it in tourist attraction places like Colombo, Galle and Trincomalee and rent it out. This initiative would have added another high end tourism attraction to the island but it was not to be.”
He recalled that one of his senior employees at this time introduced him to a powerful minister in the region who promptly visited the hotel to discuss this project. “This minister’s first request was to make him a shareholder of the venture on a profit sharing basis without investing a single rupee. I politely refused and then met the Financial advisor to the President, who sent me from place to place like Shipping Corporation and more to get approvals without success. In some institutions they point blankly asked for financial favors to speed up the approval process.”
Gomez said that he has a large investment consortium back in France and through it several French based multi million dollar projects went to China. They too were ready to fund this but I was forced to abandon this. Since the funds were available and the project did not take off I took this investment to the Maldives who welcomed me with open arms and today the ‘Pearl 111 Yacht’ is a much sought out cruise. I am happy with the change of government where I see a new bright future and I am ready to engage with BOI and bring some new French investments in the agro, renewable energy and technology sectors to Sri Lanka.”
For the first time in the leisure industry, Gomez also would be engaging in agro-based exports like spices and tea sourced from their hotel to Europe.
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