He is almost certainly the most influential living hotelier of Indian origin in the world. And ever since Sonu Shivdasani walked away from Soneva, the resort company he founded a year or so ago, the question has swirled around the world of luxury hospitality: What will Sonu do next? Also read | The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: The culture of queuing up outside a restaurant

But first a little background for those unfamiliar with the hotel world. Sonu is the son of Indoo Shivdasani who, in the 1970s, was one of the richest people of Indian origin in the world. Sonu had the classic British education (Eton, Oxford etc). His father died (at the age of 61) in 1979 when Sonu was 13. That still gave Sonu the option of joining the family business, one that he rejected. Instead, he married a Swedish model and the two of them bought an island in the Maldives which, at that stage, was a relatively unknown nation noted only for exporting tuna and hosting downmarket tour groups from Europe.

Sonu had never studied hoteliering so there was some consternation when he said that his wife Eva and he would open a hotel on their island. In fact, they ended up revolutionising tourism in the Maldives by opening a high-end luxury resort in 1995 that changed many of the rules of hotelier Ing and created a new kind of luxury: Barefoot, laidback, and yet, millionaire-friendly because it combined huge well-designed accommodation spaces with the world’s best food and wine.

Sonu Shivdasani exits Soneva, returns with Sosei

Soneva Fushi turned the........

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