Idea 15 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
Long-stay monthly rates for remote workers, with desks, power backup and fibre guaranteed
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
Test the power and internet at one guesthouse or apartment for a full week, log every cut, and fix what you can with a backup battery and a second connection. Then post a monthly rate, with the logged uptime, in three online communities of remote workers. A booking for a full month, and the worker's verdict after the first week, is the proof.
- Who pays first
- Remote workers who can live anywhere with reliable internet and would pay a monthly rate for a written guarantee of power and fibre.
- What leaves today
- One month's stay is worth many short visits, yet without a guaranteed connection remote workers choose somewhere else to spend it.
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 15 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.