Idea 19 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
Wedding-week villas: the ceremony, the guests and the honeymoon in one place
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
Write to 10 wedding planners in Britain, Europe and among Sri Lankans abroad who already plan weddings back home, with a one-page offer: one villa for the ceremony, the guests' rooms and the honeymoon week in the same place. Ask each what their couples usually spend on a wedding abroad. Two planners asking for dates, or naming a budget, are your proof.
- Who pays first
- Couples marrying abroad, often with a Sri Lankan partner, who want one place for the wedding, the guests and the honeymoon.
- What leaves today
- A destination wedding brings dozens of guests for a week; split across towns or sent elsewhere, most of that spending goes with 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 19 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.