GOSTELOW REPORT—”Producing one-off resorts in spectacular landscapes in the most inaccessible parts of the world must be a labor of love as well as a business,” says Coromandel Beach Properties Pvt Ltd developer Pramod Ranjan, based in Chennai, India.
Travel, to find the perfect spot, is almost an addiction. Ranjan may, at any time, be found in Australia, in India, or Latin America, especially Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru – where he is really excited by Amazonia, and by Nazca archaeological sites in the south of the country. “Yes, travel, essentially to design and opening resorts is my lifetime hobby, which fortunately is supported by my seafood business,” he explained.
Modestly, he does not generally explain that he is one of the main suppliers of frozen, butterflied prawns to Darden Restaurants and Red Lobster Seafood Restaurants worldwide. Why, however, not stick with the comparative safety of foodservice?
His mentor was his maternal grandfather, who turned the family home, Chipstead, in Chennai, into what is now Taj Coromandel Chennai. In 1972, his grandfather also started Oriental Hotels, still 30% owned by the family (today, Oriental Hotels, of which Pramod Ranjan is CEO, owns or has shares in seven hotels, including Taj’s two properties in London).
Earlier on, Ranjan had no interest in running hotels, only staying in them. “My parents wanted me to become a doctor, but after graduating in business from Melbourne’s Monash University, I stayed on in Australia and was building a fledgling commercial concern. But I have always been drawn to nature and I was able to lease 180 acres of land in the mountainous Coorg rainforest area in central India. It seemed and ideal location to share with others, so I started working on a resort,” he explained.
As the industry knows, a resort developer typically contracts with at least one architect, whose colleagues design and re-design online. In the somewhat unusual case of this first-time developer, however, he merely sketched ideas on the back of an envelope and elaborated from there (he learned which materials to use by going to manufacturers, wherever in the world the best quality names were).
After six and a half years’ work – thinking, design and construction – the 63-villa Taj Madikeri Resort & Spa, Coorg, opened December 2012. Six months later it was on the global Hot Lists of Condé Nast Traveler in the U.S., U.K. and India, and also Travel & Leisure, U.S. and India.
“I told everyone that this would be a one-off but when it was finished my family said I was obviously so good at development and design I should carry on,” Ranjan shared, as if with relief. His next project was on the Andaman Islands, India’s distant eastern territory that has until recently been restricted to military. Taj’s parent, The Indian Hotels Company Ltd, which is also a shareholder in Oriental Hotels, had already won a government auction for 46 wooded acres next to the best beach on the Andamans’ Havelock Island.
Taj turned to Ranjan to design, which he did, as co-owner. Taj Exotica Resort & Spa’s 72 villas, set among hundred-year-old, 100-foot palms, are dome-roofed, emulating the huts of the local Jarawa tribes. “Again, we were lauded by Condé Nast Traveler, in May 2018, just shortly after opening,” Ranjan recalled.
Coromandel Beach Properties Pvt Ltd is now seriously into a schedule to open up India’s Laccadive Islands, off the mainland’s southwest tip – the islands run vertically, as it were, to meet the north of the Maldives. “This will be the world’s next must-visit resort area. The islands have large lagoons and, being further from the equator than the Maldives, the reefs are in better condition.” Once again, he is leasing land from local owners (“I believe strongly that the best way to do business is to offer a good margin”).
Other developers think about access. Ranjan is not put off by arrival challenges. Traveling to Taj Havelock, for instance, requires flying to the Andamans’ capital, Port Blair, and waiting at least an hour for a 90-minute catamaran trip that may go via other islands on the way. Reach Havelock and you have a 30-minute drive through a forest track that also sometimes has local buses on it. “Honestly, today’s global nature travelers find travel part of the whole experience. Get to Taj Havelock, by the way, and you not only have nature and the beach but a 150-foot rooftop infinity pool, gourmet-but-local organic food and perfect WiFi.”
Well, even when he is at one of his existing resorts, Ranjan has to keep in touch with the Laccadives, and with land owners in Peru who are waiting for him to sign leases for their precious, and desirable, tracts. He fields calls from brands wanting to work with him. And just occasionally, he has to check on his butterflied prawns.