Sri Lanka’s Women-Run Hotel Breaks Down Barriers

AFP/APP

Kandalama: It’s time for the daily staff meeting at Sri Lanka’s Hotel Amba Yaalu, where manager Jeewanthi Adhikari laughs and says, “This won’t look very serious, there are only girls around the table.”

Perched on the shores of Lake Kandalama in the lush hills of central Sri Lanka, the hotel opened in January with a unique concept — it is run entirely by women.

The initiative is the first of its kind in the country, aimed at empowering women in a tourism sector where men occupy up to 90 percent of hotel jobs.

“The chairman wanted to start a hotel with a new concept,” said Adhikari, 42, explaining that the idea emerged in the aftermath of two major setbacks to Sri Lanka’s tourism industry — the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 financial crisis, which led to widespread political unrest and the president’s ouster.

“It’s been a really bad time,” she added. “When there were employment vacancies, only men got the job. We wanted to give women the opportunity instead.”

The hotel’s owner, Chandra Wickramasinghe, president of the Thema Collection group which manages 14 properties, said the goal was to showcase what women are capable of when given a chance.

“Unfortunately, there’s no gender equality in hotels in Sri Lanka,” he said, pointing to a mix of factors: lack of training, cultural norms that prioritize women as homemakers, and low wages that reinforce the idea that women might as well stay home.

“In our men’s society, when it comes to women working in hotels, it’s one nice girl at the reception and housekeepers to clean,” he noted. “I wanted to go a little bit further.”

Skills and Courage

Amba Yaalu, which means “best friend” in Sinhala, has 33 rooms and a 75-woman team handling every aspect of operations — including tasks traditionally assigned to men.

Maintenance worker Hansika Rajapaksa, 28, shared how her experience broke stereotypes.

“People think it’s difficult for women to be involved in maintenance,” she said. “But after training, we’ve proven we can do the job just as well.”

Dilhani, a former army member who preferred to use only her first name, now works as a security officer. “I’ve experienced war… I’ve manned roadblocks,” she said. “With that experience, this job is easy.”

Chef Upeka Ekanayake, 23, sees the hotel as a platform for change. “This is a great opportunity for women to demonstrate their talents and courage to the next generation,” she said.

Manager Adhikari acknowledged that old habits were initially hard to break. “Our staff were used to working with male colleagues and would automatically wait for someone else to take initiative, because that’s how they were trained.”

Owner Wickramasinghe recalled the skepticism he faced. “Some people didn’t believe in it. They scoffed and said an all-women team would just gossip,” he said — but he proved them wrong.

The effort has received praise from within the tourism industry. Nalin Jayasundera, president of the Association of Tour Operators, called it an “excellent initiative.”

“We want to encourage even more women to join the tourism industry,” he said, adding that the model leaves “a very good impression on our customers.”

Visitors have taken notice, too. One Canadian tourist wrote in an online review, “I felt like I could speak up and answer questions ahead of my partner without staff looking to him for confirmation.