Starter Kit. Idea 109 of 500. Cluster 5
Wellness packages combining treatment, food and accommodation
The mechanism, from the book
Ayurveda is a system of medicine the world already recognises and seeks out. The demand is there; what Sri Lanka needs is more of its own names, known and asked for abroad.
The first step
Partner with one Ayurveda centre, one guesthouse and one cook near each other, and agree a price for a 7 night package paid through a single booking. Write it up on one page with the daily schedule and the total price. Send it to 20 small travel agents abroad who sell Asia trips and ask whether they would add it to their list. Three yeses are enough to start.
- Who pays first
- A small travel agent abroad who wants a complete, priced week to sell, rather than three suppliers to coordinate.
- What leaves today
- Treatment, food and rooms are each sold cheaply and separately; the packaged week, where the margin sits, is rarely assembled on the island.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask how a package of rooms, food and treatment registers as a tourist service.
- Department of Ayurveda. Ask which registered practitioners could lead the treatment side.
Check before you spend
That every part of the package is registered, that a doctor checks guests before treatment, and that refunds and medical cover are clear in writing.
Find out these three numbers
- What do agents abroad pay for a full wellness week?
- What does one guest cost per day to host and treat?
- How many guests a month could you take?
A comparison from the book
Central Highlands hub. Appendix
"The hub is the tea and wellness town at Nuwara Eliya"
The book plans a tea and wellness town, so build the package around a place.
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.