Starter Kit. Idea 16 of 500. Cluster 1
Family-suite lodges near the parks, built for three generations travelling together
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
Ring 10 lodges near one national park and ask each whether it can sleep a family of seven across three generations in connected rooms, with a ground-floor room for grandparents. Note which cannot. Then offer one willing lodge a trial: you market a three-generation package to Sri Lankan families abroad planning a trip home, and it holds the rooms. One family booking proves the gap.
- Who pays first
- Sri Lankan families abroad bringing children and grandparents on a trip home, who cannot find one place near the park that sleeps them all together.
- What leaves today
- Large family groups split across hotels or cut the park visit short; a lodge built for them keeps every night and meal in one place.
Ask first
- Department of Wildlife Conservation. Ask what rules apply to building and running a lodge near the park boundary.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask how a family lodge registers and what room standard they inspect.
Check before you spend
Whether the land is outside any buffer zone, whether building there needs wildlife approval, and what safety measures protect children near the park.
Find out these three numbers
- What do families of three generations pay for a suite near the parks?
- How many nights do family groups usually stay near a park?
- What does a suite for grandparents and children cost to build?
A comparison from the book
The coast. Chapter Four
"Somebody else, somewhere down the beach, is selling them the second week."
A family that has what it needs in one place stays the second week with you.
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.