Vista Rooms, South Asia’s largest chain of affordable stays, is expanding its operations in the East coast of Sri Lanka following a wave of success in the Western, Central and Southern regions of the country. With a current inventory of 50 rooms in the East, the hospitality startup is expected to grow to over 200 rooms before the end of the year.
The expansion will solidify Vista Rooms’ presence in Sri Lanka after having entered the market in 2016. This latest move comes on the back of Sri Lanka’s continued growth in popularity as a holiday destination among international travellers. In 2017 Sri Lanka reached an all-time high of 2,116,407 tourist arrivals. That stellar trend continued into the new year with double digit year-on-year growth.
Commenting on this new focus Amit Damani, Co-Founder of Vista Rooms, said, “Traditionally there has been a strong focus on tourism in the West and South of the country. However, as Sri Lanka continues to invest in the tourism industry and reach towards its vision of being identified as a place for memorable, authentic and diverse experiences, we believe the East will see greater growth in tourist numbers. This will likely be bolstered by further investment in infrastructure that makes the East more easily accessible.”
“In less than two years we have become operationally profitable and in the past year alone we have grown 10 fold. We see a bright and prosperous future for tourism in Sri Lanka and our investments in the East coast will help secure Vista Rooms’ place in that future,” he added.
Vista Rooms goes beyond increasing monthly revenues for their partners, by taking care of the entire guest lifecycle and improving day-to-day operations. Regular audits of each property guarantees a standardised experience for all guests – their average review score of over 7/10 on Booking.com is a testament of this focus on excellent guest experience. With access to the Vista Rooms’ preferred vendors, their partners source their supplies at lower rates and thereby, reduce their maintenance costs considerably.
Recently, Vista Rooms, identifying a surge in popularity in the informal sector, began providing complete turnkey solutions for the private stays segment. They offer end to end support to villa and apartment owners – right from tech, to sales, to regulatory and operational support. Having already tied up with over 50 apartments and villas across the island the company has begun providing an off the beaten path experience to tourists.
Since entering the Sri Lankan market Vista Rooms has been successful in quickly capturing market share and building the largest network of branded stays in the country with over 350 properties across 30 cities. The same swift growth can be expected from the brand going forward, as they begin catering to a large, untapped demand segment.