Starter Kit. Idea 229 of 500. Cluster 11
A spice-trail tourism route from Galle to Matale with tastings, mapped and marketed as one product
The mechanism, from the book
The imitation out-earns the original. Vietnam earns more from cassia than Sri Lanka does from true cinnamon, because the cassia arrives on the shelf as a product and the cinnamon arrives at the port as a bale.
The first step
Drive from Galle to Matale over 2 days and stop at every spice garden, processor and kitchen along the way. Ask each owner whether they would host a tasting for a small group at a set fee per head. Draw the route on one page with the stops and times, and offer it to 3 tour operators. The proof is a map of willing hosts and a first booking.
- Who pays first
- A tour operator who sells the island as a spice island and has no single, planned route that proves it on the ground.
- What leaves today
- Spice gardens are visited one at a time and many feel like sales stops, so the island's spice story is never sold as one trustworthy product.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a spice-trail tour must be run by a registered operator.
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask which spice gardens and processors on the route welcome visitors.
Check before you spend
Whether each stop agrees in writing to host groups, and whether your transport and guide are licensed to carry and guide visitors.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a visitor pay for a spice trail over a weekend?
- How many stops between Galle and Matale would host tastings?
- What does each stop charge per head?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka's crops. Chapter Two
"Most countries get a single crop story. Sri Lanka gets a whole basket, and it has never once been sold to the world as one."
Sell the whole spice basket as one product, which is exactly what has never been done.
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.