The story of Alila Diwa

As luxury brand Alila prepares to launch in Oman, Viability director Guy Wilkinson reports from the company’s resort in Goa and finds out how it came to fruition.

A few years ago, the Indian government took steps to encourage the country’s largely state-owned banks to lend money on easier terms for tourism projects. In Goa, the country’s favourite beach tourism destination, this resulted in a pipeline of some 20 new hotel projects, including many planned for construction on rice paddies. However, the green lobby got up in arms and much stricter regulations were introduced, causing many projects to be cancelled. One survivor of this challenging process — the first of many it would face — was the five-star hotel now known as the Alila Diwa in Majorda, Southern Goa.

The seeds of the project were sown when Nirav Parekh returned to Mumbai in 2005 after completing his masters in biomedical engineering in the US. Fortunately for him, Nirav’s family owns the Parekh Group, a third generation shipping empire comprising 23 companies. The group looks after its own, and with seven young men of around Parekh’s age, the current generation of patriarchs decided that it would be good to help each of them set up two different businesses. It was proposed that Parekh’s qualifications would make either hospitals (logically) or hospitality (why not?) appropriate choices for him, since both could allow creation of long-term assets for the family to offset the risks inherent in the very cyclical shipping industry. And as any self-respecting Hotelier Middle East reader would have done, he plumped for the latter.

According to Parekh, he identified Goa as the site for his future hotel out of nine possible locations across India. “The main reason why we chose Goa was that very few new hotels had come up there and many old hotels needed renovation. Furthermore, over the last five years there have been huge improvements in the air, rail and road connectivity of Goa, whereby future tourist volume projections are optimistic. Goa is the only true tourism destination in India,” he adds, pointing out that it receives no less than 16 flights a day from Mumbai in the high season.

Parekh and his uncle Suresh then set about finding a suitable site in Goa — not an easy task, considering the relative scarcity of beach plots remaining in both North and South Goa. They also had to contend with the rules of the nationwide Coastal Regulation Zone, which prohibit building on any land within 200 metres of the high tide line, and exert major restrictions on other buildings up to 500 metres inland.

They chose South Goa because “it is more family-oriented, more premium,” as Parekh explains. Eventually, they found an idyllic 12-acre plot next to a paddy field, set back some 700 metres from the beach. “The present site was one of the rare plots where within government regulations, we could built a facility which was not far from the sea.”

Their next hurdle was to collect no less than 64 signatures from assorted members of the family that previously owned the plot – which was apparently good going in Goa, where frequently hundreds are required, thanks to the archaic Portuguese inheritance laws still applied there. The hotel was then planned and built over four years, requiring a grand total of 171 permissions to be secured, a work force of 1200 people (on site as recently as last June), and a whole year of operating the hotel on its generator, before the mains electricity was connected! Given that other hotels in Goa have taken an entire decade to open, many came to view the Parekhs as nothing short of miracle workers.

First of many

The first of half a dozen hotels Parekh is now planning, the Alila Diwa has 114 rooms and suites in operation, with a new Club Diwa wing of 35 (even) more exclusive letting units now under construction in a second development phase, together with a stand-alone spa.

For the hotel design, Parekh enlisted a crack team of consultants to help shape its unique character. He toured the roads of Goa to photograph and fully absorb the Indo-Portuguese vernacular in the company of Tony Joseph from Stapati Architects of Calicut and Kerala, who was set on staying true to the local building style and creating a resort of ‘human scale’. Parekh recalls: “Tony vowed he would break the legs of anyone who did anything to the trees on the site!”

As a result the hotel was built around the trees, including a famous mango tree outside the main restaurant that Parekh jokes is “the most expensive mango tree in India,” due to the considerable extra expense of building round it. Apart from the wonderful view it affords, all the mango pickles made in the hotel’s kitchens derive from this tree.

With a 40% land coverage and a 0.8% FAR, the hotel certainly offers ample landscaping and also benefits from the rustic beauty of the neighbouring paddy field and jungle backdrop, which romantically frame the infinity edge pool. The main buildings feature many fountains and other water features “so guests forget they are not at the beach”.

Tony Joseph’s ‘contemporary Goan’ buildings utilise Indo-Portuguese elements such as sloping red-tiled roofs and open, colonnaded walkways and verandahs ranged around a main courtyard, their columns faced in the region’s characteristic brick red laterite stone. The reception building, like most of the big resorts in Goa, is open-air, and features a tall A-framed timber roof. The hotel boasts acres of the beautiful teak-like Malaysian ‘sal’ wood, which resists the tropical conditions extremely well, and a 1500kg stone statue of Ganesh from East Asia. As a rule, however, the Parekhs selected Indian fittings including craft items such as the ‘capiz’ (seashell) inlay in the bar.

The hotel’s interiors were the brainchild of American Lisa Garriss from Plum Design in Singapore. It was she who infused the hotel with its clean, contemporary interiors and many Far Eastern touches. As Parekh rightly assesses, “the exterior is Goa, the interior Bali.”

Another key element of the property’s magic is the sophisticated interior and exterior illumination created by New York’s AWA lighting designers, including all kinds of trendy uplighters, downlighters, recessed, foot level and hidden lighting. The guest rooms all have six ‘mood lighting’ modes, ranging from bright reading spots to a subdued ‘intimate’ setting and floor level lighting especially for ‘night’ excursions to the bathroom.

Confident in their ability to bring true innovation to Goa, the Parekhs completed the building structure before hiring an operator. Singapore-based Alila was selected after the family met several other management companies. “We wanted an operator who had passion for running premium holiday destinations and who was hungry to prove its success in India,” comments Parekh.

All 10 existing Alila hotels including the Diwa are members of the Design Hotels marketing consortium. As the first full-service designer hotel in Goa, the Alila Diwa is already being well-accepted, not least by India’s huge market of middle class nouveau riche travelers. “Connoisseurs do exist,” asserts Parekh, while agreeing that his hotel can appeal equally to those with untrained eyes, who simply enjoy the design rather than analyzing it.

And if its Goa hotel is representative, then the chain certainly delivers on its brand promise. “The hallmark of Alila is stylish, relaxing environments and superb hospitality that creates a unique guest experience,” says Parekh. This starts before the guest’s visit with completion of a Personal Preference Menu specifying everything from dietary requirements to pillow choices, and continues with a truly personalised service that often results in guests and staff becoming friends.

The Diwa is Alila’s flagship in India and will be followed by further hotels in Bangalore, Calicut, Cochin and Kerala. Here in the Gulf, the Alila Villas Musandam in Oman are now under planning, combining cliff-top residences with a five-star hotel, scheduled for opening in late 2012. Alila is also looking at two other projects in Oman, in Jebel Akhdar, and in Salalah. Be sure to try them — you’ll be in for a treat!