Deer Park Hotel and Banyan Tree Group part ways

L.M. Jinasena & Co., (LMJ) and the Banyan Tree Group of Singapore have mutually decided to end the Management of The Deer Park Hotel in Giritale.

LMJ would take over management of the hotel with effect from 1 July 2011. Banyan Tree Resorts intends to develop its own hotel(s) in Sri Lanka which it would manage, if it could acquire appropriate site(s).

It was therefore mutually agreed to discontinue the management agreement for Deer Park Hotel. During the last nine years, Banyan Tree group managed The Deer Park under its Angsana brand and collection of hotels.

With its global presence and expertise, it set the hotel to a high standard and made it well known throughout the world, thereby giving LMJ, the owners, a property with a very good operating standard and global reputation to continue to manage from henceforth.

“LMJ is grateful for the effort put in by Banyan Tree in operating Deer Park and looks forward to maintaining the excellent relationship with it long into the future,” a statement said.

LMJ also stated that it appreciated the support given to the Deer Park Hotel over the years by its valued travel partners, tour operators, the Ministry of Tourism, Tourism Development Authority and the BOI, adding that it looked forward to continuing working together.

Apart from the removal of the Angsana name on the hotel, there won’t be any changes to the operation or standard of the hotel.

LMJ is a group of companies owned by Lalin Michael Jinasena, its CEO, and Deshamanya Dr. Nihal Jinasena, its Chairman. LMJ inherited the Deer Park Hotel and The Royal Lotus Hotel from the Jinasena Group in 2009 along with Almeco, an aluminium castings and export company.

LMJ also owns the award-winning Casa Colombo under its hotels division. Its other diverse businesses include the famous ‘Gonuts with Donuts’ brand. It recently ventured into web development with a company called Cyber LMJ this year, which is developing a breakthrough website which it plans to launch towards the end of this year.

LMJ Hotels has seen exceptionally good results over the last six months, with all of its hotels making record levels of occupancy and revenue.

The company plans to reinforce its position in the hotels sector with large investments into refurbishing its current portfolio of hotels as well as in developing new properties.