Executive Premium rides to successful first year

• Sri Lanka’s top notch business travel partner looking to expand operations post-COVID

Executive Premium the premier travel partner of all business travellers to and within Sri Lanka is turning one year. A strategic investment by serial investor Alex Lovell MBE, Executive Premium has earned a

Chairman Alex Lovell, MBE

CEO Dhanushka Weerasinghe

Taj Hotels Area Financial Controller Sri Lanka, Maldives, Malaysia and Director of Finance Soumitra Ray

strong reputation as an exclusive service provider within a short span of time. A strong player in business class and city entertainment traveling, Executive Premium is now the most sought after travel partner for star class hotels and airlines. 

Executive Premium CEO Dhanushka Weerasinghe noted that the journey has been memorable albeit a challenging one. “We started in July 2019 as a very small operation with just few vehicles in our fleet. Today we have grown this business to a larger vehicle fleet and 71 strong team under the guidance of Alex Lovell, MBE our Chairman. Our key differentiator is our exclusive service which is so reliable and star class that all of the premium hotels are now looking to align with us.”

Executive Premium currently provides services to Taj, Kingsbury and Galle Face Hotels and is the travel partner for Oman Air and Polish Air while providing travel services for the entertainment industry as well. They have engaged with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka as the Travel Partner for SEACEN – BIS International Conference conducted by CBSL. The Company is also engaged in chauffeur training. 

Commenting on their performance over the past 12 months, Soumitra Ray, Director of Finance and Area Financial Controller (Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Maldives) of Taj Hotels said, “Special emphasis is drawn to their excellent service during the COVID-19 pandemic where they really rose to the challenge to support us with urgent travel arrangements. We have a very cordial relationship with them as Executive Premium is our Exclusive Transport Provider and we wish them all the very best in growing their business in the future.”

“We are operating in a very sensitive industry. No matter what happens in the external environment travel and tourism is the first to get affected. When we started operations Sri Lanka was just recovering from the Easter attacks and we built the business from scratch and now again with the epidemic we faced a serious threat but was able to emerge from this period without laying off a single team member. This is due to the strength of our team. Our chauffeurs are of excellent quality and we have a dynamic management team led by Chathuranga Udawatta, Manager – Business Process Engineering, Francis Olagasegaram – Manager Operations, Romesh Samarasinghe – Financial Controller and Tejan Dias – Accountant who have worked hard with their teams to bring Executive Premium to stability and financial strength in a very short span of time,” added Weerasinghe. 

Alex Lovell meanwhile commented on his investment in the travel sector, “Executive Premium is my most recent investment and has proven to give me a healthy return. Despite the business being highly sensitive to external pressures it also has the wherewithal to make strong returns soon as the tide turns. Next year we would be expanding our operations base in the business hotel segment while exploring new opportunities in inbound travel. I must comment Dhanushka and her team for what has been a very strong first year of performance and I look forward to building on this momentum as Sri Lanka opens up to the world in the coming months.”

Executive Premium has moved its offices to Colombo 7 for the convenience of exclusive travellers and has operations running at Taj, Kingsbury and Galle Face Hotel.