Thailand-based Six Senses Resorts & Spas is scouting for locations to open its first city hotel in India along with a resort in a leisure destination. The company is also planning to open a city hotel in Abu Dhabi.
“Although we are a resort company, we can create a resort-like atmosphere in a city as well, with elements of nature and a meditation centre in the property,” said Ryosuke Yakuwa, director of sales and marketing - Asia-Pacific, Six Senses.
The luxury hotel chain believes in keeping itself exclusive and operates eight properties around the world. However, it is opening five properties to expand its presence across five countries by 2016.
The company has also created a $150-million property fund to invest in key locations in a manner that it would hold a stake of maximum 15 per cent in a property. “It will help us get the trust of the owner and also have more say in the development of our property. I don’t see any reason why we would not like to invest in India,” Yakuwa said.
In India, the company operates a spa in partnership with the Jaypee Group. It is planning to open a spa under its brand, Evason, in Pune and a Six Senses spa in Mumbai at Lodha Developers’ World One project.
Six Senses is known for its natural locations; for instance, the presidential suite of its Six Senses Ninh Van Bay in Vietnam is nestled between rocks with a private pool opening at the beach. The resort chain has also created wine cellars in natural caves. It has been looking for an ideal location in India in places including Kerala and Goa for the past five years, but has not been able to finalise one.
The hotel brand was bought by US investor Pegasus last year. Since then, it has been going for a rebranding of its properties. “We had a very rustic design which was very cutting edge, and may not be to the taste of everyone. We are becoming more sophisticated in our design and trying to use material which is easy to maintain and sustainable at the same time. We were focusing too much on the latter previously,” Yakuwa added.
Six Senses is also hard-selling its sustainability drive with items like ‘zero-carbon footprint cuisine’.
Yakuwa said, “Each of our resort has its own organic vegetable garden which we use for making this cuisine and also we assure that all ingredients are from within 50 km radius of the resort location,” Yakuwa said. The hotel and spa chain claims that it is also one of the reasons why companies want to associate themselves with its name.
