It’s a long way from the central highland tea country of Nuwara Eliya in tropical Sri Lanka to the hospitality business in Ukraine.
But Irantha Duwage has been here in Kyiv, the 11th country where he’s lived and worked, for seven years now. He arrived in 2012 and wants to stay even longer.
He is the chief operating officer of DBI Hotels & Resorts. The Lausanne, Switzerland-based company now manages two properties in Ukraine: The Ramada Encore by Wyndham and Hotel Number 21, the rebranded Impressa Hotel in the Podil district, and The Kitchen 21, an Indian restaurant located next door.
But Duwage said his company is in negotiations to brand and manage seven more properties across Ukraine, including more in Kyiv, a luxury health spa and resort in Zhytomyr and other places in the Carpathian Mountains.
Robert McNeil, CEO of Pulse Communications and an owner of the Number 21 hotel, likes what Dugawe’s team has done for his business.
Consummate’ pro
“I’ve been working with Irantha since September 2017,” McNeil said. “He’s a highly motivated and a consummate professional. He is extremely hard-working, as are all of the staff on his team. He walks, talks and breathes teamwork. He is highly innovative and always looking for ways to do everything better, to maximize the customers experience. He is fully hands-on in operations, finance, marketing and, most importantly, with the clients. He is very committed to staff development and sees the potential in staff even when they don’t see it in themselves.”
Besides, McNeil said, Duwage is fun and “an awesome cook.”
His was a humble beginning. Duwage and his family left his native Sri Lanka when he was only 16, partly because of the 26-year civil war that ended only in 2009. He is Sinhalese, the ethnic group that makes up 75 percent of the Indian Ocean island’s 21 million people.
He soon got his first job cleaning a bar in Singapore, then working in the kitchen, which inspired his love of fine cuisine. Still a teenager, he was already hooked on the hospitality industry and wanted to be part of those “very cool” clientele of well-dressed women and men of different nationalities, speaking different languages. “I wanted to be one of them,” he said.
He got one scholarship after another, and started racking up degrees. According to his LinkedIn profile, his first degree came in 1997 following a five-year management program at the formerly Ceylon Hotel School & School of Tourism in Sri Lanka. He also studied at Cornell University in the United States and for a master’s in business administration from The University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.
11-nation veteran
One job led to another, and by the time he arrived in Ukraine, he had already worked in 10 other countries in his more than 20 years in the profession. They included: the United States, the Caribbean Islands, United Arab Emirates, Maldives, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
In 2016, four years after arriving in Ukraine, he became chief operating officer of DBI Hotels & Resorts, a management agency that he helped found.
The Ramada Encore hotel is located several kilometers south of the city center between Feofaniya Park and the Dnipro River on 103 Stolychne Highway.
Despite its out-of-the-center location, it is next to the Atmosfera shopping mall, which has helped business. “A stand-alone hotel there would never have been a success,” he said.
The hotel had above-average room occupancy rates, which have been 55 percent in Kyiv with revenue per available room about $70.
He said that it never lost money even during 2013 and 2014, when Ukraine suffered a severe recession triggered by the EuroMaidan Revolution that ended Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych’s rule, prompting the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine that continues today.
Its large conference space, Duwage said, was booked 85 percent of the time last year. The conference center has more than 5,000 square meters of space with 30 different conference rooms able to accommodate events from 50 to 1,000 people. He sees a growing demand for conference and training space for companies. The 20-story hotel has 264 rooms, 58 long-stay apartments, three restaurants, two bars and two gyms.
Untapped potential
Like many in the hospitality industry, Duwage relentlessly promotes Ukraine’s potential as a transit hub connecting Europe and Asia. He said that Ukraine’s successful hosting of the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final and the Eurovision Song Contest showed that it is ready for other big events. Outside of Kyiv, the potential for tourism growth is even greater. “Many investors are only concentrating on Kyiv, which is pretty sad,” he said.
He backs politicians’ goals to have tourism grow from 2 percent of Ukraine’s gross domestic product to 10 percent.
To do that, Duwage said that Ukraine’s government needs a clear strategy and better funding for promotion. He suggests a more active tourism board or even a Tourism Ministry, even if it has to be funded by a tax surcharge on restaurants, hotels or convention halls, as it is in other nations. Such a tax wouldn’t kill business, he said, “as long as it’s driven to meet the demand.”
He says government officials have done “enormous things” to improve the nation’s tourism potential, noting visa-free travel and increases in airport traffic with the arrival of more airlines. But he believes the nation still lacks internationally experienced experts in the industry. He also said the nation needs to be more investor-friendly, especially for those already doing business in the nation.
“If there is a good project that comes in, there should be the freedom; there should not be opposition,” he said.
He likes to be the first to supply market demands in different areas. “Copying doesn’t work most of the time,” he said. As for trends, he said Ukraine is “missing hugely the health segment” and believes the edge will be with tech-savvy hotels.
As for what he’s learned about succeeding in Ukraine, he said: “You need to be very genuine here. You need to let people know how you feel. Then they will start following you and liking you. When the trust is there, everything is easy.”
He wants to stay in Kyiv, “the best place,” for a long time. “I love this country.”
