Light House Hotel - 31.03.2013

http://www.cse.lk/cmt/upload_report_file/562_1366802432921.3.13.pdf

Apr 25, 2013 (LBO) - Profits at Lighthouse Hotel Plc, a unit of Sri Lanka's Jetwing group fell 29 percent to 57.1 million rupees in the first quarter of 2013, interim accounts showed.

The firm reported earnings of 1.24 rupees for the quarter, in accounts filed with the Colombo Stock Exchange.

In the year to March profits rose 1 percent to 112.1 million rupees giving earnings of 2.44 rupees per share. In addition the firm also made asset revaluation gains of 12 million rupees, in the year.

Lighthouse is the first hotel to file accounts in the March earnings reporting season. Sri Lanka's Employees Provident Fund owns an 11.05 percent stake in the firm.

In the March quarter revenues fell 5 percent to 203 million rupees, and cost of sales rose at a faster 16 percent to 39.4 million rupees, causing gross profits to fall 9 percent to 163 million rupees.

This year the Galle Literary Festival was not held in January 2013, which analysts say could have hurt revenues of hotels in the Galle area, where Lighthouse is located.

Sri Lanka has also been getting negative publicity over the killing of a tourist and the rape of his girlfriend by suspects that include a politician and the lack of any prosecutions, amid an overall perception of a breakdown in rule of law.

But many of Sri Lanka's hotels are also overpriced compared to competition according to some critics, which means aggressive promotion is needed to maintain prices.

The industry has been calling upon authorities to use a cess tax collected from them for and aggressive promotional campaign.

Last year the rupee fell by about 10 percent making the country cheaper for foreigners in countries with stronger exchange rates. Economic troubles in Europe may also be hurting the travel industry.

Lighthouse Hotel plays in the top end of the market.

Feudal-Artisan

High-end tourism, economic analysts say is not pure capitalist-liberal but is a business model dates back to an earlier feudal era, where artisans used to produce high end goods and services which could only be enjoyed by the aristocracy.

Capitalism on the other hand led to the emergence of industries and services which could be enjoyed by their own workers on their own salaries ranging from industrial cloth, to Model T Fords to global mass tourism.

Global mass-market tourism emerged in the late 1950s with Britain's Indiaman bus company and Swagman tours which started taking people across Europe by land, at a time when many airlines were still state-controlled, expensive and were themselves 'feudal-artisan'.

The so-called 'Hippie Trail' then developed, running from Europe to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal, India (Goa) and then to Malaysia (Penang), Vietnam (Hoi An), Indonesia (Bali) and eventually to Australia.

Sri Lanka's Hikkaduwa came up around that time with capitalist entrepreneurs setting up small hotels and restaurants, with no state intervention making the island an off-shoot of the trail and becoming part of a global revolution.

Following the end of a 30-year war in Sri Lanka many smaller hotels have come up, which are drawing tourists with more reasonable rates.

Economic analysts say if the smaller hotels, which use internet bookings, did not offer more reasonable tariffs overall tourist numbers to Sri Lanka may be even less.

The global airline industry is also no longer in the hands of states and rulers and citizen-owned budget airlines have transformed the economics of air travel.

Though the original Hippie Trail collapsed with the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, LBO's economics columnist fuss-budget says trends such as the Banana Pancake Trail has emerged helped by budget airlines.

Update II
http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/news/Sri_Lankas_Lighthouse_Hotel_net_down_29-pct/97753558

We need more and more cricket matches in Galle (my home town) so that hotel can prosper....

Jake Sully wrote:We need more and more cricket matches in Galle (my home town) so that hotel can prosper....

yes. good wish