WHY NOT SRI LANKA? සිංහල

Starter Kit. Idea 260 of 500. Cluster 13

Blue-whale watching from Mirissa and Trincomalee with a code of conduct and a limit on boats

Back to the idea

Written for this site as a starting point, not from the book. Rules and fees change: ask the bodies named below before you spend money.

The mechanism, from the book

An ocean eight times the size of the land, and a fishing fleet that sells its catch on the beach. The Maldives built a tourism industry on water Sri Lanka has more of.

The first step

Draft a one-page code of conduct for whale watching: distance, speed, time with the animals and number of boats. Take it to the boat operators at Mirissa or Trincomalee and ask which of them would sign it and advertise it. Then ask two travel agents abroad whether they would sell a signed-code trip at a higher price than the rest. Written yeses from both sides show whether restraint can be sold.

Who pays first
A European tour operator whose guests ask whether a trip treats the whales well, and who will pay more for one that keeps its distance.
What leaves today
Without a trusted standard the whale watching sells cheap and crowded, and the premium travellers pay for responsible encounters goes to other coasts.

Ask first

  • Department of Wildlife Conservation. Ask what rules already apply to boats watching whales, and who enforces them.
  • Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether whale-watching operators must register, and with whom.

Check before you spend

Whether operators will sign a written code with distance and boat limits, and how a boat that breaks it is kept out.

Find out these three numbers

  1. How many boats go out on a busy morning now?
  2. What would visitors pay for a trip run to a code?
  3. How many operators would sign the code first?

A comparison from the book

Zermatt. Chapter Five

"The village decides how many vehicles it will have."

A limit chosen by the operators themselves keeps the whales, and the price, worth coming for.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

WITH500BUSINESS IDEASTO STARTTOMORROW

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.