ERIC CELEBRATES a half century of hospitality

‘Beauty Beyond Batik with Hospitality’, a fashion extravaganza and star studded night, to celebrate the fifty five years of Batik designing and 50 years of hospitality trade by Eric Suriyasena of Suriya Resort fame was held at the Suriya Resort in Waikkal last week. Eric started his hospitality business in late sixties with a hotel in Negombo, five years after his Batik trade in Marawila. The celebration also marked 50 years of commitment for the Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka. He is currently recognised as the pioneer and premier exponent of batik paintings and design and is venerated for his contributions of this creative means of pictorial expression. He is also leading a battle to review the dying batik industry in Sri Lanka.‘beauty Beyond Batik’ was to promote the fading industry and to give a new level to the Batik Fashions’. Sri Lanka’s largest Batik Fashion Show was hosted by Eric Suriyasena of Suriya Batiks in Marawila was held amidst a large gathering of corporate, ambassadors, fashion designers and a number of top hoteliers.

Suriyasena for more than a half century, has adapted the traditional and very ancient craft of dyeing on cloth using a wax resist method and pioneered the use of the Batik medium as a form of Fine Art in Sri Lanka.

The event was marked as a special milestone as where it celebrated 55 years in the batik industry for the creator of Eric Suriyasena Batiks.

“Batik is part of our heritage. It is a beautiful tradition that needs to be kept alive in our country and shared throughout the world. Like Batik, half of my mind goes with the hospitality industry.

I am proud to celebrate this anniversary as I am now totally focusing our aim to promote and develop the crashing hotel industry’ said Eric Suriyasena.

The ‘Celebration event was mainly organised as a fund raiser in aid of the Chilaw Cancer Hospital and the Heart to Heart Trust Fund which is a project launched by the founder of Eric Suriyasena Batiks and Chairman of Suriya Resort, Waikkal and Goldi Sands Hotel Negombo. In a bid to give back something to the community, he founded the ‘Heart to Heart Trust Fund’ to help create awareness programmes to prevent heart diseases and also raise funds to support heart surgeries.

The launch of his cancer project is to stop patients coming to Maharagama Cancer Hospital seeking treatment. He had built a special ward at the Chilaw Hospital, equipping it with modern medical equipment so that patients could be treated.

Fifty years in Hospitality Industry