NEWS

Sterling Holiday Resorts India Limited sees net profit

The Hindu Business Line
Chennai, July 30

The Chennai-headquartered Sterling Holiday Resorts (India) Ltd has reported a turnaround in the quarter ended June 30, 2013. It reported a net profit of Rs 60 lakh on a total income of Rs 40 crore for the quarter, against a net loss of Rs 90 lakh in the comparable previous year quarter.

“We are making a net profit after almost 16 years, purely based on performance. We had made a net profit for one or two quarters a few years ago, but on the basis of some extraordinary gains,” said Ramesh Ramanathan, Managing Director of the company. The turnaround performance is due to the initiatives over the last couple of years and the investments made in enhancing the quality of its product and services, says Ramanathan. These efforts, according to him, have seen a rise in the number of vacation ownership members and non-members holidaying at the company’s resorts, leading to an increase in resort occupancy to 65 per cent from 52 per cent in the same period last year.

“In the last quarter, we have introduced Sterling Hotshots, an entertainment initiative for toddlers, children and teenagers in select resorts. We will extend the concept to other resorts as the initiative has been appreciated by our members and guests,” he said.

During the quarter under consideration, the company added one new resort at Yelagiri (in Tamil Nadu) - MariGold Ridge – taking the total room inventory to 1,512 across 19 resorts. The ongoing expansion in the company’s destination network and inventory would help maintain a healthy member to room ratio, providing members with more opportunities to holiday in locales and seasons of their choice, he said. The company has 15 additional sites where it plans to add new resorts in the coming years.