"We have not had too many opportunities in Sri Lanka," says Channa Daswatte, who now spends more time in India than at home.
"With the onset of hostilities between the government and the LTTE (Tamil Tiger guerillas) most of those projects have been shelved."
Daswatte says even Sri Lankan hoteliers are also investing in India and other south Asian countries that are accelerating tourism infrastructure projects to attracting more visitors.
"There is a lot of investment in the tourism industry in India and a great deal of opportunities for architects to build because most of their [Indian] architects are busy building their cities," he said.
"Very few actually have time for small hotels and small developments which a lot of Indian architects would not even touch because it's really small fry for them" he said.
Architects Channa Daswatte and Murad Ismail who runs an architecture firm in Sri Lanka are aiming to go deeper into a niche market of small hotels in India.
Dasw