By 2008,Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings PLC (ASHH), a leading Sri Lanka
hotel group had established a reputation for operating iconic resorts,
in particular, its resort at Kandalama in the central highlands region
of the country. Heritance Kandalama, the resort, had evolved after a
troubled beginning to gain international recognition for its social,
ecological and environmental best practices. In large measure, this was
due to the emergence of a set of people management practices that had
evolved an organizational culture with values that supported these best
practices and enabled the resort to survive, notwithstanding ongoing
civil conflict in Sri Lanka. In 2007, ASHH launched a strategic drive
into hotel management services in India. A major element of the group's
brand equity was its core competency in sustainable and
community-sensitive development, much of which it had acquired through
the Heritance Kandalama resort experience. A key challenge for ASHH: Can
the group's philosophy of sustainable development be successfully
implemented in India's hospitality industry? How could ASHH use the
Kandalama experience to manage hotels in the culturally and socially
diverse towns and cities of India?