Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings PLC is a hotel chain holding company based in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan conglomerate Aitken Spence is the parent company of Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings. The company operates hotels in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Oman and India. Aitken Spence ventured into the hospitality business by building two seaside resorts designed by Geoffrey Bawa. The company was founded in 1978 as Ahungalla Hotels Ltd and is the proprietor of the Hotel Triton. Ahungalla Hotels Ltd was listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange in 1980. In 1994, after acquiring Aitken Spence Hotels Ltd, the company gained control of the properties of the hotel chain. Kandalama Hotel and the Tea Factory Hotel commenced operations in 1994 and 1996 respectively. The company opened its first resort in the Maldives in 1993.
Ahungalla Hotel Ltd changed its name to Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings in 1997. The "Heritance" brand launched in 2006 with Hotel Triton relaunched as Heritance Ahungalla. The company partnered with RIU Hotels to build a 500-room resort in Ahungalla at a cost of US$100 million in 2014. The second hotel brand, "Turyaa" was introduced in 2015 and the company opened Turyaa Chennai, the chain's first owned property in India. Heritance Negombo reopened in 2016 after an LKR5 billion renovation. Heritance Aarah, Aitken Spence's latest resort in the Maldives opened in 2019. Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings is one of the LMD 100 companies in Sri Lanka. The hotel chain has a 2,826-room inventory across 21 properties. The company owns and operates 15 properties and manages six properties.
History
Aitken Spence ventured into the hospitality sector by building two Geoffrey Bawa-designed hotels.