Idea 1 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
Boutique eco-lodges with heritage views
The mechanism, from the book
If Sri Lanka earned what the Maldives earns per visitor, the visitors it already has would bring in $2.4 billion a year more.
Every idea in cluster 1 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Walk the land near one heritage site where a lodge could stand and photograph the view at dawn and at dusk. Send those photographs, with a one-page description and a proposed nightly rate, to 10 small travel agents in Europe who sell tailor-made trips to the island, and ask whether they would hold 3 nights for a client. Any agent who names dates or asks for terms is your proof.
- Who pays first
- A tailor-made tour operator in Europe who needs a reason to keep clients near the ruins for a third night instead of driving on.
- What leaves today
- Visitors see a heritage site in a day and move on, so the nights that carry the spending are never sold near it.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
The stay shortened by nearly a quarter, and the $2.4 billion gap
More from cluster 1
- 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
Idea 1 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.