Starter Kit. Idea 387 of 500. Cluster 19
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask which registered places and services in the region a guide could list.
- Central Cultural Fund. Ask what may be printed about the sites it manages, and which photographs may be used.
Check before you spend
Confirm permission for every photograph and map used, that each business listed agrees to its entry, and how often each entry is checked.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a visitor pay for a printed regional guide?
- How many places in the region are worth listing?
- Which hotels and shops would sell the guide at the counter?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"So when a maker in Kandy needs a buyer in Toronto"
A list that is kept current is what lets the right people find each other.
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.