Fighting stereotypes against women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka is Kanchana de Silva of Hikkaduwa, graduate of Jayawardenepura University, who faced an uphill struggle to venture into the tourism industry.
Talking to Sinhala language Ada website, the 26-year-old, born and raised in the tourist haven of Hikkaduwa on the mid-southern coast, says from her young age she was dreaming of launching her own business in the hospitality sector.
“I studied Commerce subjects for my A Levels with this idea in mind and when I got the opportunity to enter the university to follow Business Administration I opted for a degree in entrepreneurship. I set sights on achieving my goal but things did not seem that easy mainly because the hotel sector is male-dominated and on the other hand people thought tourism is not an ideal area for a woman,” she says. Some believe that tourist industry around Hikkaduwa scenic beaches is destroying traditional values.
She began her dream project while studying at the university. The alumna of Anuladevi College in Galle who comes from a poor background had difficulties in finding the capital. As a student she could not get the approval for a bank loan. “I borrowed Rs.300,000 from an aunt who is a teacher and built a cabana in 2014. In Hikkaduwa there are lot of hotels, tourist restaurants and inns mushrooming urban areas but I selected an isolated beach where the tourist can have access to the real natural beauty of our country and traditional hospitality and native cuisine.”
The cabanas in Nisalu Uyana (Tranquil Garden), the name she has given to her project, have the cosiness and simplicity of an ordinary village abode, sheltered with coconut palm leaf cadjans resting on logs, with white-painted brick walls.
After completing her first cabana she had to face lot of problems. She was unable to rent it to tourists as she was unable to get electricity and water supply. “Even today I depend on a well to provide water for the use of the cabana. Villagers questioned my sanity of going into tourism and I had lot of conflicts with many people and had to go to the police once to settle some issues” Kanchana said.
After launching a web site – Tranquil Garden Beach Cabana – her business began to improve. “The food is cooked by my mother using organic vegetables and many locally available herbs. We get 100 per cent rating from our visitors for our traditional family hospitality. Tuk-tuk drivers in the area too help us a lot by finding guests,” says Kanchana who opened the second cabana last November. Her goal is to build a cabana village as it is difficult to find well-equipped accommodation on the beach in Hikkaduwa. She is assisted by her husband, Chutti, who has many years of experience in hospitality trade.
Many people in her area are building hotels and motels to make a fast buck from the boom in tourism, says Kanchana adding that her attitude to business is quite the opposite. She likes to give the foreign guests ‘a feel of real Sri Lankan home with authentic native cuisine and real value for their money’.
