Starter Kit. Idea 14 of 500. Cluster 1
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether selling a full package with transfers needs registration as a travel agent.
- National Transport Commission. Ask what permits a vehicle carrying paying tourists between provinces needs.
Check before you spend
Whether you must be registered to sell packages, whether the drivers and vehicles are licensed for tourists, and what insurance covers a whole trip.
Find out these three numbers
- What does an agent abroad pay for a full island circuit?
- What do drivers, hotels and entry tickets cost for one guest?
- How many agents would sell your circuit as one booking?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka. Introduction
"There are 8 UNESCO World Heritage Sites on an island you can drive across between breakfast and dinner."
The sites are close together, so one booking can hold the guest a full week.
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.