Idea 2 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
Luxury treehouse stays in forest margins
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
Find a landowner on a forest margin who will let one tree be used for a trial, and sketch the platform with a local carpenter so you have a real cost. Then share the sketch and the view with couples who travel for unusual stays, through travel groups and a simple booking page, and take refundable deposits for the first season. Ten deposits tell you to build.
- Who pays first
- Couples on a honeymoon or a milestone trip, who book the unusual night first and plan the rest of the route around it.
- What leaves today
- A night in the canopy is a premium stay; without one, the forest is a day stop and the money moves on down the road.
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
- 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
- 7Restored colonial estates as private villas
Idea 2 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.