Idea 4 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
Heritage homestays in family houses
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.
Every idea in cluster 1 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Sit with your own family, or a neighbour with an old ancestral house, and agree which two rooms could host guests and what story the house carries. Write that story in 200 words, photograph the rooms honestly, and offer 3 nights at a founding rate to five Sri Lankans abroad who bring friends home each year. One confirmed stay gives you your first review.
- Who pays first
- Sri Lankan families abroad bringing foreign partners or friends home, who want them to stay somewhere with a real family and a real history behind it.
- What leaves today
- The old family house sits empty or decays while visitors pay hotels; the house's story and the night's rent can both stay local.
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. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
The stay shortened by nearly a quarter, and the $2.4 billion gap
More from cluster 1
- 1Boutique eco-lodges with heritage views
- 2Luxury treehouse stays in forest margins
- 3Glamping with proper service, at sites with none
- 5Floating cabanas on the ancient reservoirs
- 6Forest holiday villages on the Center Parcs model: lodges among the trees, a covered pool, bikes and a lake, so a family stays a week, not a night
- 7Restored colonial estates as private villas
Idea 4 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.