Idea 12 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer, spend more (the $2.4 billion gap)
Railway-station conversions in the hills and on the coast
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
Photograph five disused railway stations in the hills or on the coast, note their condition, and find out which office holds each one. Write to that office asking whether a lease for guest use is possible and on what terms. In the same weeks, show the photographs to 10 travel writers and agents and count how many ask to book. Interest from both sides is the proof.
- Who pays first
- Travellers who collect unusual stays, and the agents who sell to them, both willing to pay more for a night nobody else can offer.
- What leaves today
- Old stations in the hills and on the coast decay unused when each could be the most talked-about night of somebody's trip.
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
- 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
Idea 12 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.