Starter Kit. Idea 430 of 500. Cluster 22
Airport transfer companies with drivers trained, insured and rated
The mechanism, from the book
The village cannot get a box to the container port. The gap is small firms, not big ones.
The first step
Gather three drivers you trust, check their licences and insurance, and write a one-page promise covering fixed prices, clean vehicles and arrival times. Take it to the owners of 10 guesthouses that book airport pickups for their guests, and offer a trial with a rating card for each guest to fill in. The proof is a guesthouse that books its next arrival through you.
- Who pays first
- A guesthouse owner whose guests land late at night, who pays for a driver they can trust because a bad first hour ruins the review.
- What leaves today
- The first ride shapes every review a visitor writes; trained, insured and rated drivers are proof of reliability that the whole tourist trade can sell.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask how a tourist transport company and its drivers can be registered and listed.
- Department of Motor Traffic. Ask which licence each driver needs to carry tourists for hire.
Check before you spend
Confirm each driver's licence for carrying paying passengers, insurance that covers passengers and luggage, and registration for the vehicles you use.
Find out these three numbers
- What do guesthouses pay now for an airport pickup?
- How many pickups a month do your first ten guesthouses book?
- What does a trained driver expect to earn for each trip?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"What nobody forgives is being charged a premium and then embarrassed."
The first ride sets the visitor's view of the whole country. A fixed price and a clean car earn the next booking.
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.