Starter Kit. Idea 1 of 500. Cluster 1
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- Central Environmental Authority. Ask whether a small lodge near a heritage site needs an environmental approval before building.
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask what building approval a lodge on this plot needs and how long it takes.
Check before you spend
Whether the land can carry a building near a protected heritage site, and whether the owner's title is clear enough to lease or build on.
Find out these three numbers
- What nightly rate do agents already pay for rooms near the ruins?
- How many nights a year could the lodge expect to fill?
- What does one room cost to build to the standard you want?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"It is to give somebody a reason not to leave tomorrow."
Every room exists to give the guest one more reason to stay another night.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.