Otherland Hotels, a new South Asian independent lifestyle hotel collective, has announced the opening of its debut international property in Galle, Sri Lanka, in June 2026. The 66-key oceanfront hotel sits close to Galle Fort on the country’s southern coast, positioned as a lifestyle address built around the town’s surf culture, emerging creative subcultures, and a tourism landscape that has been gaining serious momentum over the last several years.
Otherland was started in 2023 in Bengaluru by Rishi Sreedharan and Samarth Gowda, who had previously built a co-living community in India before turning their attention to what they saw as a clear gap in South Asian hospitality. Asia-Pacific’s lifestyle hotel segment quadrupled in supply between 2014 and 2024, with growth concentrated heavily in South-East Asia. South Asia, by comparison, has largely been left to legacy luxury chains and boutique guesthouses with very little sitting between them. Otherland is making a direct play for that space.
Rishi Sreedharan, Founder and CEO, said, “South Asia is loud, alive, dripping with culture and taste, and deserves a hospitality brand that can speak its language without putting on a costume. Otherland is our vision to achieve this. We want to be unmistakable somewhere, and then somewhere else, and then again, each time earning our place with a distinctive lifestyle language, built for the modern traveller who wants more than just an accommodation. Galle, with its excellent surf culture, evolving tourism landscape, and exciting creative subcultures, is exactly the kind of place where we want to be.”
Galle itself is a city that has been rewriting its own story. Long associated with its UNESCO-listed Dutch colonial fort, Galle has developed a distinct identity shaped by a growing surf community, an independent food scene, and a wave of creative businesses that have changed the character of the town without erasing it. Sri Lanka’s southern coast recorded some of its strongest inbound tourism numbers in recent years, driven largely by younger, experience-seeking travellers who have moved beyond the traditional resort circuit.
Samarth Gowda, Co-Founder and COO, said, “The choice of Galle as our first location felt like the truest version of what Otherland could be, layered, alive, and completely its own. For us, going international didn’t mean going global in the conventional sense. It meant finding a place in our own backyard that the world hadn’t fully discovered yet, and building something there that belongs. Independent hotels, at their best, don’t just reflect a destination, they amplify it. That’s the only way we know how to do this.”
Studio Camarada has designed the property with its coastal setting as a direct reference point. A visually arresting façade is matched with sober interiors that pack a punch through deep shades, articulate materials and architectural curves. Sreedharan highlights, “Otherland isn’t designed for a generation, it’s designed for a mindset. While it naturally resonates with Gen Z and millennials, the brand is built around “free-state luxury”, for culturally curious, experience-first travelers who value originality over convention. It’s less about age, more about attitude: people who want luxury to feel personal, social, and alive, not scripted or standardized.”
A double-height central bar anchors the lobby, bringing together check-in, a cafe-bar, and a gelateria into one social space. Corridor carpets carry patterns drawn from the rhythm of surf, and room floors open up in batik-inspired designs across sandy tones, ocean blue, and sun-baked rust. Every design choice has been made to root the property in its specific location, rather than a general idea of what a lifestyle hotel should look like.
Food and beverage runs across three distinct concepts. Creatures is a fifth-floor rooftop pool club that turns into a nightclub each evening, with a red mosaic pool that shifts from terracotta blush to deep crimson through the day, supported by DJ residencies and live sound programming. Bar-kery sits in the lobby and works as a coffee bar, cocktail bar, and casual all-day diner at the same time, with vinyl spinning through the night. A third concept is yet to be announced.
Programming, which Otherland calls The Other Side, is built on the idea that the calendar is always on. Otherland Surf Club works exclusively with local Galle wave-riders, offering sunrise lessons, board rentals, and a post-surf espresso ritual.
Chef residencies and mixology-focused cross-cultural pop-ups bring in guest chefs and bartenders through the kitchen and bar on a rolling basis. Culinary events put local farmers and foragers directly into the food, through heritage curries on open flames and masala mixology sessions rooted in regional produce and technique.
A spa is also in the works. Sreedharan mentions, “We’re not building a traditional spa, and that’s intentional. Wellness at Otherland is something you feel, not something you book for an hour. It lives in the experiences, the setting, and the rhythm of the place. We’ll reveal more as we get closer to the launch of Otherland Galle.”
Otherland Galle opens in June 2026 as the first property in a pipeline that includes hotels, restaurants, and beach clubs across South Asia. It is the brand’s first oceanfront property and its first address outside India. Bookings and further details on the third F&B concept are yet to be released.
