Idea 387 of 500. Cluster 19: Heritage, archives and film
A guide to everything in Sri Lanka, indexed and kept current: the places, the maps, the hotels, the courses, the makers, the trails and the seasons, published region by region, each volume written and sold from its hub
The mechanism, from the book
8 World Heritage Sites and 2,300 years of records, and the country's story is told to the world by other people.
Every idea in cluster 19 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Pick one region with a hub, and list everything a visitor could want there: the places, the hotels, the courses, the makers, the trails and the season for each, checked by visiting or calling. Publish it as a short guide online and in print, and sell copies through the hotels and shops in the region. The proof is the first print run sold and the makers asking to be listed.
- Who pays first
- A visitor arriving in the region who wants one trusted guide to what is there, and the hotels that sell it to them.
- What leaves today
- Visitors rely on guides written abroad and miss most of what each region offers; a guide made here keeps the sale and sends them further.
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. ThreeWhat We Have Already Built
Geoffrey Bawa's tropical modernism and the Aman resorts
More from cluster 19
- 381A film-location service: crews, permits, fixers and locations, sold to the studios of India and Europe
- 382Documentary production about the island's own stories, sold to the streaming platforms
- 383A museum shop worthy of the museum, at the National Museum, at Anuradhapura, at Galle
- 384Digitisation of the palm-leaf manuscripts and colonial archives as a paid service to the libraries of the world
- 385Architecture tours of Bawa's buildings with the houses opened by their owners
- 386Heritage-building restoration firms with the skills to work on the forts and the villas
Idea 387 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.