Sustaining ‘The Good Life Experience'

Tamara Leisure Experiences CEO Shruti Shibulal talks about the benefits of blending sustainability and business, and why it makes economic sense in the long run.

- Debojyoti Ghosh

FOR SHRUTI SHIBULAL, the 33-yearold CEO of hospitality venture Tamara Leisure Experiences, sustainability has been the cornerstone of how things are done across her hotel properties, whether it be financial, social or environmental. “Profit, people and the planet,” she puts it pithily. The daughter of Infosys co-founder S.D. Shibulal cites Tamara Coorg, the chain’s first luxury resort launched in 2012, to prove her point. Tamara Coorg, spread across 180 acres of coffee plantation in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, broke even in just three years; 60% of the employees are locals; and the construction of the cottages was done with minimum dent to the environment. “Our ethos from the very beginning has been ‘sustainable good life’ ... We wanted to provide unique authentic guest experiences with sustainability built into it,” Shruti says. Things are looking lively at Tamara Leisure Experiences. In May, it opened its second luxury property, Tamara Kodai, in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu. The 53-suite heritage resort boasts La Providence, a building that dates back to colonial times, now restored to serve as an all-time diner. The company is developing two new properties in Kerala and renovating an existing one: a business hotel with 154 rooms in Thiruvananthapuram which is expected to open by this year end; a hotel in Guruvayur for which it has procured land; and it is sprucing up and adding more rooms in its luxury resort Palma Laguna in Alappuzha. Shruti is also eyeing local acquisitions to expand the company’s midsegment serviced apartment brand, Lilac, in Bengaluru in Karnataka. Besides these, it owns three properties in Germany, which are leased out: Holiday Inn Express in Guetersloh, Prizeotel in Hannover, and Courtyard by Marriott, in Wolfsberg.

In an interview with