WHY NOT SRI LANKA? සිංහල

Starter Kit. Idea 3 of 500. Cluster 1

Glamping with proper service, at sites with none

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

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

Ask the owner of a beautiful site with no accommodation, a riverbank or the edge of an estate, whether you can pitch two tents for one trial weekend on a revenue share. Hire the tents, cook proper meals, and sell the weekend to Colombo families and resident expatriates through their school and workplace networks. Full bookings, and guests asking to come back, are the proof.

Who pays first
Colombo families and resident expatriates who want a weekend outdoors without roughing it and will pay for someone else to handle the meals.
What leaves today
Beautiful sites with no bed turn every visit into a day trip; an overnight with real service keeps the spending at the site.

Ask first

  • Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a tented camp must register as tourist accommodation and what they inspect.
  • the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether tents on private land need any approval from the council.

Check before you spend

That the landowner agrees in writing, that toilets and water meet the health officer's expectations, and whether tents count as accommodation needing registration.

Find out these three numbers

  1. What would a guest pay for a serviced tent at this site?
  2. What do proper tents, beds and bathrooms cost to set up?
  3. Which nearby sites have no decent place to stay overnight?

A comparison from the book

Sigiriya. Chapter Five

"What nobody forgives is being charged a premium and then embarrassed."

Service and clean facilities are what the guest is really paying for under canvas.

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.