ITC Colombo One, the US $ 300 million luxury hotel and residencies by the Indian Conglomerate ITC Limited, broke ground yesterday at a ceremony attended by many dignitaries from Sri Lanka and India.
“ITC dedicates this project to Sri Lanka and to its future progress and prosperity. I am sure that this landmark hotel will add a jewel to the crown of Sri Lanka’s hospitality sector,” ITC Limited Chairman Y.C. Deveshwar said.
This luxury hotel will be ITC’s maiden overseas foray in the hospitality sector and will offer around 350 rooms in the first phase, more than 130 luxury residences, world-class banqueting and cuisine experiences as well as retail and full service office space.
Set to finish construction by 2018, the hotel’s environmentally-friendly design is slated to earn it the LEED Platinum rating.
All ITC luxury hotels have been awarded the certification and the company claims to be the ‘greenest luxury hotel chain in the world’ with ‘responsible luxury’ and is concerned about the triple bottom line.
ITC Colombo One will be located in the heart of the city, overlooking the historic Galle Face Green and coming up next to Shangri La Colombo, which is scheduled to finish construction in 2015.
ITC is one of India’s foremost private sector companies and a diversified conglomerate with interests in fastmoving consumer goods, hotels, paperboards and packaging, agri business and information technology.
With a market capitalisation of around US $ 45 billion and a turnover of over US $ 7 billion, ITC has been ranked amongst the top 10 ‘sustainable value creators’ in the consumer goods segment globally by the Boston Consulting Group, while Deveshwar was ranked the seventh Best Performing CEO in the world by the Harvard Business Review. Recently, ITC was ranked as India’s most admired company by the Fortune India magazine in association with Hay Group.
ITC started its life in 1910 as the Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited. As the company’s ownership progressively Indianised, the name of the company was changed to India Tobacco Company Limited in 1970, then to I.T.C. Limited in 1974 and finally ITC Limited in 2001.
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