Cluster 1 of 28. Ideas 1 to 20
Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
The mechanism
If Sri Lanka earned what the Maldives earns per visitor, the visitors it already has would bring in $2.4 billion a year more.
The 20 ideas
- 1Boutique eco-lodges with heritage views
- 2Luxury treehouse stays in forest margins
- 3Glamping with proper service, at sites with none
- 4Heritage homestays in family houses
- 5Floating cabanas on the ancient reservoirs
- 6Forest holiday villages on the Center Parcs model: lodges among the trees, a covered pool, bikes and a lake, so a family stays a week, not a night
- 7Restored colonial estates as private villas
- 8Budget lodging built to the same standard of welcome as the expensive tier
- 9Villa management services for absentee owners
- 10Private pool and garden maintenance businesses serving the above
- 11Tea-estate bungalow stays with the working factory as the attraction, not the view alone
- 12Lighthouse and railway-station conversions on the coast and in the hills
- 13Farm stays where the guest works a morning in the paddy or the spice garden
- 14A 7-night circuit product sold as one booking: hills, ancient cities, coast, with transfers
- 15Long-stay monthly rates for remote workers, with desks, power backup and fibre guaranteed
- 16Family-suite lodges near the parks, built for three generations travelling together
- 17Surf lodges at Arugam Bay and Weligama run to the standard of Bali, with lessons and board hire
- 18Dark-sky stays in the dry zone, with a telescope and a guide who knows the southern sky
- 19Wedding-week villas: the ceremony, the guests and the honeymoon in one place
- 20A guesthouse rating scheme run by the guesthouses themselves, with published inspections