Idea 388 of 500. Cluster 19: Heritage, archives and film
Audio guides for every major site in ten languages, sold by download
The mechanism, from the book
Eight 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
Record a 10-minute audio guide in English for one site you know well, and pay a native speaker to record it in one more language. Put it on sale as a download, with a sign at the entrance of a guesthouse near the site. The downloads in a month, by language, tell you which languages to do next.
- Who pays first
- An independent visitor at a major site who does not want a group tour and would pay a small sum to understand what they are looking at.
- What leaves today
- Visitors hear the island's history from foreign guidebooks and apps; a local guide in their own language keeps the story and the fee.
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
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 388 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.