Starter Kit. Idea 12 of 500. Cluster 1
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- Department of Archaeology. Ask whether the building is protected and what changes to it need approval.
- Urban Development Authority. Ask whether the site falls in an area where they must approve a change of use.
Check before you spend
Who owns the building and whether it can be leased at all, whether it is protected, and whether the new use is permitted there.
Find out these three numbers
- What would guests pay to sleep in a converted railway station?
- What will it cost to make the building safe and comfortable?
- How long a lease would the owner agree to?
A comparison from the book
Singapore. Chapter Five
"It had learned, from one bad year, that its heritage was revenue."
Old buildings people come to see can pay for their own keeping.
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.