Idea 14 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
A 7-night circuit product sold as one booking: hills, ancient cities, coast, with transfers
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
Draft one 7-night route through the hills, the ancient cities and the coast, and ring each guesthouse and driver on it for a net rate for a named week. Add your margin, put the whole trip on one page at one price, and send it to 20 people abroad who have asked you for travel advice about the island. One paid deposit shows the product sells as a single booking.
- Who pays first
- Independent travellers abroad who want the whole island arranged in one payment, without trusting a dozen separate strangers.
- What leaves today
- A visitor booking piece by piece stays briefly and pays booking fees to platforms abroad; one local package keeps the nights and the fee.
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 14 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.