Starter Kit. Idea 18 of 500. Cluster 1
Dark-sky stays in the dry zone, with a telescope and a guide who knows the southern sky
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
Borrow a good telescope from a school or an astronomy enthusiast, find a guesthouse in the dry zone with no lights nearby, and run one free evening for its guests. Ask each guest what they would have paid, and ask the owner whether to make it a fixed night each week. A named price from the guests and the owner's yes are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Guesthouses in the dry zone that want a night-time activity to turn a one-night stop into two, and the guests who book it.
- What leaves today
- The dry zone's dark sky is a resource visitors never see, because they arrive, tour by day and leave before night falls.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask how a small stay with night-sky sessions registers as tourist accommodation.
- the Divisional Secretariat. Ask who controls the land around the site, so new lights do not spoil the sky.
Check before you spend
That the land is far enough from bright lights to stay dark all year, and what insurance covers guests outdoors at night.
Find out these three numbers
- How many clear nights a year does the site get?
- What would a guest pay for a night with a telescope and guide?
- What do a good telescope and a trained guide cost?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"cheapest way to turn a day visit into a 2-night stay."
A night activity is the cheapest reason for a visitor to stay over.
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.