The construction work of the new hotel Heritance Negombo has continued during the year and is expected to be operational during the financial year 2014/15 B r o w n s B e a c h H o t e l s Chairman D.H.S Jayawardena told shareholders.

The resort upon completion will be re-branded as “Heritance Negombo” the latest addition to the Heritance portfolio and will comprise of 143 rooms.

It will be an up market, state-of -the-art property with all modern amenities and will cater to multiple segments of clients including leisure, business and tourist travellers.

During the financial year, Browns Beach Hotels Group reported a profit after tax(PAT) of Rs 93.2 million mainly on the interest income earned from the investments of the funds raised from the rights issue.

Sri Lanka’s tourism for 2013 exceeded the 1.25 million tourists target to reach 1.27 million arrivals, which shows the growing popularity of the destination in the eye of the global traveler.

For Sri Lanka 1.27 million arrivals is a record arrivals figure and one that foretells the arrival of 2.5 million tourists by 2016.

Accordingly, earnings from tourism during 2013 recorded a year-on-year growth of 35 percent to US$ 1.4 billion, compared with cumulative earnings of US$1 billion in 2012.