Detangle with Sonu Shivdasani

Sonu is not just your quintessential businessman , but a person who has built a business based on passion , love and inspiration . My introduction to Sonu happened at a beautiful time when I was at Sonewa Jani , his newest resort in the Maldives , and I was stunned by how the remote yet accessible resort touched us in simple and unexpected ways .

Simply put , it changed us as travellers forever by showing us that sustainability is not just a vague and abstract concept that belongs in an environment summit , but attainable by all of us with just a little mindfulness and intent . Welcome , sonu , and thank you so much for joining me on Detangle today .

It took her literally an hour and a half to get to a resort that today , with all the modern infrastructure , would take you like 20 minutes or so , and all the eight was just fish and bananas . So she was quite constipated by the time she came back , but she just loved the beauty of the destination and she said she vowed to return . So we met each other .

Being of Indian origin , our family would quite often go to India and celebrate over the Christmas , new Year holidays , and so one year we went . The first year I met her , we ended up spending New Year's Eve at Goa , and this was back in 1986 , where Goa was quite still quite charming .

You had the Portuguese element and these beautiful beaches and fantastic bars , and I thought Goa was splendid . And Ava said no , no , if you like Goa , you have to come and see the Maldives , because it's incomparable . And so the next year we ended up in the Maldives on holiday and I was just blown away .

I'm sure you were the first time you came to the Maldives or seen anything like it , with these literally like hundreds of fried eggs , with the little island in the middle and then this gin coloured water surrounding it . So it was an amazing experience .

I've never seen anything quite like it , and I think Ava and I have lived a few lives We've definitely lived a few lives together and I think we've lived a life in the Maldives because both of us had a special affinity to the country . So I was studying in English universities I was up at Oxford at the time . English universities , the terms are quite short .

You have to be up there in college for about eight weeks three times a year , so more than half of the year you could be wherever you are , provided you keep up with things . And I used to spend a lot of time in the Maldives and we just love the geography , the destination , but the standards were pretty poor and they weren't terribly sustainable .

So , historically , islands in the Maldives originated from German and Italian tour operators who would approach farmers . Sri Lanka was the main tourist destination in South Asia at the time , with the equivalent of about 400,000 tourists before the war .

And so these Italians and Germans would have these charter flights coming into Sri Lanka with tourists doing tours around the country . A bit of beach . And they then thought that perhaps they could add the Maldives as a dive extension . And that became very popular .

So they'd go to farmers and say build us 50 houses , hearts will give you a 10 year contract , called a bend contract , and will guarantee you a certain occupancy at a very low rate . It was all inclusive and will give you three years in advance . And that's how results in the Maldives were built .

So the farmers wanted to keep consumption low because the revenues there was a ceiling on the revenues . So the bar would be next to the generator , the bar house , the worst place possible . You sat on plastic chairs , neon lights , everything came in out of tins the fruits , that little peach for the dessert with the cherry .

We were like cool , and so we just felt we could do something a bit , a bit more exclusive , luxurious and more sustainable . Because the budgets in those days of these resort developers were so low . They were using coral to build the reefs , everything was saltwater the toilets , the showers , etc .

Which also meant that you couldn't really process the wastewater before you sent it out into the lagoon , so they were either dumping sewage into the lagoon or contaminating the water table with salt . We just felt that we were undermining the environment and we wanted to do something different rather than just go and stay in these hotels .

So one morning I went to charter the boat , went to Mali and saw that at that time the government office in Mali was just one large building with two stories . So I asked to see the director of foreign investment and within a couple of minutes as I should , because the economy was quite slow , they had nothing to do with the ministers .

So I saw the director and we had the TEs asking me about life in England and how things were . We had a nice conversation . He was obviously quite bored and he then offered to say unfortunately you can't do . You can't just lease an island as a foreign and build a house .

You have to potentially invest in tourism , and the director of tourism has nine islands that they're auctioning off . So we went up these stairs to a room nearby and there was the director of tourism and again we had a long chat and he gave me these good documents . So we bid , but we failed all the time because we wanted to do something luxurious .

We didn't want to work with just one tour operator , and if you didn't have a tour operator bed contract you were already . You know , quite a few points were already knocked off , and then you were slightly disqualified by not being Moldavian as well . So we failed and then we gave up on that idea .

And then in 91 we're on holiday here again met a Swedish lady who married a Moldavian , a friend of the president , and it turned out that a friend of his had this island which is where I'm sitting now Konfonadu it was called at the time , which is now Seneva Fushi , and he'd subleased it to someone who hadn't paid the lease rental for the last two years .

He was quite desperate . He had four wives , 24 children he had about 15 of them children in Sri Lanka and he couldn't afford the school bills or to pay the rent on his beautiful house because he hadn't been paid for two years . So we came in , took over the lease , the sublease , and paid him his rental and we ended up having an island in the Maldives .

Ava and I spend most of our life by a body of water . If it's not here , it's never Fushi , where we've got this huge Indian Ocean in front of us . We spend three weeks in Sweden in the summer Actually it's about five weeks .

Five or six weeks we base ourselves out of Ava's family's summer house in Sweden and that's located on the second deepest lake in Europe . And then we spend about three weeks of the year in a cottage in Oxford where I was studying at , and there we have a nice pond . We have a waterfall and a pond . It's quite small .

So I think there's something about water with me and certainly I just love being by the ocean . Of course I travel and I'm away from the sea , but it's so nice to come back to the Maldives and jump in the water . It makes such a difference .

And then people , elderly couples , who empty nesters they're called , you know it's through school and paid off the mortgage and they could now afford nice holidays and so they'd come and stay with us . And this is really our initial market , get the majority of our .

In fact , I think the the second year we were open for about six months we would limit children , so we wouldn't allow children during a certain part of the year , and that was , that was the nature of the business then .

And then you had the result of thatcherism and Reaganism , you know , in the sort of the 80s , and , and then the internet revolution , and then you had the emergence of the bricks .

So sudden , for 2000 , 2001 , 2002 , we started to sort of fill up with People who are quite young . They were in their 40s and they were having children of an elderly age , and so they're arriving at our results with like three , four , five , six , seven , eight-year-olds , and Families became very important .

So we started building , you know , two bedroom villas , of course . We accepted children , started selling residences , built a den , and so now , um , funny enough , you know our , our results . Like Sunneva pushy , sunneva Johnny and Sunneva Kiri are considered to be Some of the most welcoming Resorts for families and children at the ultra luxury level .

I mean the the den at Sunneva . Johnny , I'm not sure if you saw it when you were there .

Also , you know , what we realized ever and I you know , when we started at the outset , was that the demands of the leisure traveler were completely different to that of the Corporate traveler and most of the hotel companies , that the global hotel companies were focusing really on the businessman .

A businessman is very busy , they're looking at a military style of operation , execution of commands , you know , ordering , room service , checking in .

We want everything to be efficient because they're there for business , whereas the leisure travelers very unbusy , they have a lot of time on their hands and they want to spend time lingering in the bar chatting with barman was the wife might be still in the spa .

I like the spa and so when we opened in 95 it was quite funny and the uniform system of accounts which we still use and which most Established hotels do has three sections of the prop , of the revenue lines , three main categories of revenue .

It's rooms , food and beverage , and then it's a section called minor other department and these uniform system of accounts Are established by the American Hotel and Motel Association . So any four seasons , any written off any , any luxury , any , any International brand uses this as a P&L and this is the basis for all agreements to operate hotels .

And we minor other departments was Fine . If you're a motel where people are staying overnight or your business hotel where people , just you , use the rooms , they sleep for the night , they may have breakfast , they may have a business lunch or or or dinner in the evening , you know room service , but they're generally out during the day for meetings etc .

And so minor other departments is just the phone , the facts etc . Quite small . But we realize that for our , for our leisure travelers , this minor other departments we call it life at Sunneva , our corporate is slow life and we actually call it in our P&L .

We've scrubbed out MOD and it's now says life and it stands for , in short , for learning , inspiring , fun experiences . But it covers everything . So it covers the spa . So that's why , with six senses and set up six senses bars Because we realize that that was such an integral part of the experience we allocate our waiters to , to guests rather than to tables .

The general hotelier Would allocate the waiter to the table so that you have one waiter looking after five tables in one area . So they're always present and can Usually respond to or to to request . It's fine for the businessman who's where , we're timers of the essence . But you know , for the leisure traveler they're on holiday . They want to meet the same waiter .

They're there for ten nights . They don't want a wait to continuously ask them Whether they're like milk or in their tea or whatever . You know they . They just want to deal with the same wait and quite often the waiter ends up babysitting the child as well . So so it's , it's all about . The whole approach is different .

You're trying to Create a sense of ownership . You're trying to encourage host to engage and interact with guests . The management style is completely different . So it's all about Creating the same , as I said , sense of ownership , empowering the host and giving them the opportunity to and Encouraging them to engage as much as possible with our guests .

So so I think that was in terms of a trend that we noticed and we felt that we could differentiate by , and that was , I think , led to our Success and that's why , you know , with successors . We became very successful and grew considerably until I sold that business .

And it was this whole thing of focusing on the experience , which , of course , today Everyone talks about you know experiences , but in those days it was quite rare .

Is this something that you thought of , that you know , if everyone lets their guard down , people will actually interact .

So , for example , here it's an ever pushy where I am more than 50% of our revenue comes from return guests . Guests are coming back . Wow , that's a lot more than 50% of our revenues . It's it's a lot for a long-haul destination , because 90 to 95% of our guests are Traveling long haul more than eight hours to get to us .

They've got almost the whole world to choose from and they're coming back year after year and one of the big Promptors of that is that they there are so many opportunities for them to engage and intact interact with other guests . So we have the , the wine cellar .

They'll sit round a table with other guests and have a wine tasting , or they'll go on a Donald's cruise together on the top Deck .

Or we have so social like on Tuesday night , where the general manager has a cocktail party but not in the bar , where the conversation is very stilted and people are still at stage one of how do you say human interaction Sandbank .

So we all go out to a sandbank and you know everyone's blown away by , firstly , by the beauty of the location and then , secondly , they feel as if they're sort of Marooned on this desert island together . So they're more likely to go and talk to other guests and so they engage with others , or on the dive boat and then they become great friends .

There's a fantastic film producer very successful from film producer and his partner , who'd been coming to the Maldives week For many years , had a had a birthday party I think it was her 60th birthday party or 50th , whatever in Paris , and they had five tables of 10 people on each table and on their table there were three other couples who they'd met at Cinevue

Fouci the first time .

friends . You tend to stick with old friends . You just simply don't have the bandwidth and time . But when you're on holiday you have the time to make new friends . So if we can create the context and I think being walking barefoot does also it's very healthy for you . We know that it's grounding .

Oh , yes , yes , there are a lot of studies now on the benefits of everything and being able to walk barefoot and lots of sort of experts in sort of integrative medicine and science , scientists looking at forward thinking , wellness all agree that being able to walk barefoot is very good for you .

So does this insight come from your background in literature ?

So when you join as a new host , there are 500 words in the Soniva dictionary which you're given . Yes , so we don't have a head office . Head office sounds as if they're commanding and controlling everything . It's the hub , it's a support unit . We have the core . So I'm a member of the core . I'm not the C-suite or whatever .

We have the operators called first impressions . We try and sort of give job titles that are best described the key role . So if you look at my business card , it says guardian of the culture and then in brackets it'll say CEO and joint creative director .

But I'm the guardian of the culture because that is the main objective of the leader of an organisation , at least in my view . Our rem on who looks after operations and development is the guardian of the experience . Every property has a general manager whose real title is the guardian of the experience as well . So language , I think , does drive behaviour .

My background in English literature did that help I suppose .

So we're together , there are about 100 people in the room , we're sitting on beanbags , we're in small groups of eight and I will sort of put things together . So the morning is about four hours , both mornings four hours of learning from me , where I'll put together some thoughts , things .

So the first day is more like learning and the second day is innovation , where we're trying to be creative and when we're all sitting there on these beanbags . And then the second afternoon , at the very end of these two days of the energiser , we have a thing called shared experiences , which is often our way in our groups of eight .

We all share experiences that have touched us over the last six months , or it could be something from our past if it's a new host .

So we sort of go through , in a way , our recent lifelines and everyone's got a glass of champagne , and those can be happy moments or sad moments , and then after that we do the Seneva language , where for about 30 minutes , we brainstorm on new words that we could add .

Oh , wow , that would make us more , more , how to say make us more clear as an organization .

. I met him many years ago . He helped us at Six Senses with our libraries and we initially do it on barter against a holiday , where he sort of fill our library with great books and he had great taste in books and yeah . So now he does it more formally .

So he set up a company and he provides the libraries of a lot of the top brands Amar Ritz , carlton , et cetera , et cetera . And so I was having lunch with him in Oxford a couple of years ago and I said I'd like to set up a bookshop , because the libraries become outdated quite soon and it's nice to have an area where guests can buy the latest books .

So he said he was on for it . So he actually provides all the books and chooses the barefoot bookseller to come and operate the shop for us .

How did this whole juxtaposition happen ?

But luxury is not an object , it's essentially , it's a philosophy .

It's that which is rare to you , that's you not commonplace , it's you don't get it every day , but at the same time , true , it rings a chord in your heart when you touch it , and so you know , when you think about our guests and the context of our guests , they're living in urban environments , so they used to the gold , the gilt and all of that , and for

them , just the simplicity of being in our resorts is rare , and so we always think about that . How can we create unique , rare experiences for our guests , things that they don't get every day ? And so that's really what drives us .

Do you include any mental health services at all your resorts or have you any plans to incorporate them in the future ?

You know , if you think about it , most people , including me , you know , have called , slotted one after the other , and we're continuously looking at our watch alarm on , so that we don't miss the next call . We're not late for the next meeting or whatever . So you know , we would guess arrive .

The first thing we do is we tell them that we move the clocks one hour forward , so the days are moving . So it sort of just makes time meaningless . And it's so , I think , just being in that environment where you're without shoes , you know , before you even set foot on our jetties , you've taken your shoes and put them in a bag .

The Barefoot Guardian has told you that we've changed the time on you because we feel it's better for it to be one hour later so you can watch the sunset . I think that already soothes and heals people . We know that Barefoot walking is grounding . I'm sure it's good sort of psychology , it's good for you .

And have you know , at the Seneva Soul we have our yoga masters that offer meditation as well , with breathing . That clearly helps . There's a lot of exercise . We know how important exercise is for mental wellbeing , so you know we do have fitness masters .

There are the various treatments we offer in the Seneva Soul , and then we do from time to time have visiting experts , like , for example , we have Alan Dolan here who's a breathwork expert . So you know , we know that breathwork can bring out repressed emotions . We have Malmilda Gill from London who's a fantastic hypnotherapist .

She was here about a week or two back . So we do have people also at the Seneva Soul who are supporting our guests and our hosts with their mental wellbeing .

But what if you were to have a mental first aid box For those days when you're emotionally run down and you want to take care of yourself , something which would make you happy the minute you opened it . So what would you personally put in your own mental first aid box ?

I just find that these eight pillars of joy that the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop there's been two to article Harold Abraham's which he captured in the book of joy , which I'm sure you've read about gratitude , perspective , forgiveness , compassion , et cetera , I think all of those pillars are great and so meditating on those , I think , helped me a lot , considerably .

I think the other thing is chocolate , dark chocolate .

Well , before I wrap up the conversation and before I let you go , I have the floor open to you now . Is there any question that you would like to ask me as a psychologist ?

And the second thing is when the lights went down at night On the first night we all thought we were going to fall right into the ocean because we won't be able to find our way back . And then we realized that when the light gets dimmer we actually get more tuned into the night and we feel at peace .

So the second night we were more in tune with the environment . The third night we felt we had morphed into the waves . I mean , we were part of the whole atmosphere . When we came back , we were jarred by what we came back to , you know , the lights , the sound , the action all around us , and we said three days and we were transformed .

And after that we literally changed as travelers . We all , as a group , travel very frequently , but somewhere we carried that with us . You know that it's not difficult to be mindful .

It's not difficult to kind of engage in sustainable practices , which is very rare , that one resort can change your mindset as a traveler for such a long time , which is why I think it stayed with all of us , not just me , the entire group who was there at Suneema Jani .

That time we all started , you know , kind of incorporating these tiny changes being nicer to the environment , being nicer to ourselves , traveling lighter I think we had the smallest suitcases coming there because we had no shoes and something so simple made such a difference to the way we experienced even packing and unpacking .

So I think those little pieces of the jigsaw just fell together and created this amazing picture that we didn't expect .

So you're really packing for you , to enjoy the holiday , rather than packing for others , which is still so often the case , isn't it ? There are so many hotels where when you pack to go on holiday , you're actually packing to impress others Long dresses , high heels , bags , etc . To impress others and you're not really fully relaxed .

So it was really nice to hear that , kenjel . Thank you for that . In fact , I think the second thing , if we were talking about physical objects , that would go in my mental first aid boxes .

All these wonderful letters we've received from our guests are similar to what you just described and I think for Ava and I that gives us a lot of energy to continue when you hear these compliments and how people were deeply touched and it had . You know we really impacted their lives and that's great .

And I think you know now that we've opened Cinevus Soul , that's been even more rewarding . There was a guest who we're offering stem cells here now . So there was a guest who had a stem cell treatment about three days ago and I heard back from the Cinevus Soul team that she used to take injections every couple of hours to stop . Sorry about that .

She used to take injections every couple of hours to stop the pain because she has a cortisol deficiency . She's now not needed to take the injections and there's no pain at all .

She was going to go back to do something like an operation or radiation or chemotherapy . I can't remember exactly what the oncologist had prescribed , but she was definitely going to do something quite invasive and when she went back the oncologist told her that her tumor had shrunk .

So she's now continuing on what she started here and which is great , and hopefully that will be a much longer lasting recovery , because we know with breast cancer that radiation causes secondary cancers in 16% of cases . So it was really nice that we managed to avoid that . So there's a few wellness examples , but you're reading the TripAdvisor feedback .

It's wonderful when you get lovely compliments , so thank you .

For anybody who's successful , this seemed like an overnight success , but all those years of failing behind that and all the things that you've learned along the way have made Sonneva what it is . So it's been amazing talking to you about it . Thank you so much for sharing your experiences , and I wish you all the very best .