Starter Kit. Idea 453 of 500. Cluster 24
Published price lists at the tourist sites and in the taxis, with a complaints line that answers
The mechanism, from the book
The one thing. A country where people do not expect the rules to hold cannot build anything else, and proof can be manufactured by private people, one published record at a time.
The first step
Ride with five three-wheeler drivers at one tourist site and ask what they charge for the usual trips and what they would agree to print on a card in the vehicle. Put the agreed prices on a laminated card with a phone number you answer yourself, and ask the drivers to display it for a month. The proof is how many visitors call, and whether the drivers who display it get more fares.
- Who pays first
- Three-wheeler drivers and tour operators who lose customers to distrust, and pay a small monthly fee to display prices that visitors believe.
- What leaves today
- Every overcharged visitor warns others, and the island's price falls with its reputation; a published price that holds is proof visitors can trust.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a price card and a complaints number can be shown to registered tourist services.
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether the council would support a posted price list at the site.
Check before you spend
Confirm the drivers agree to every printed price, who answers the complaints line and how fast, and permission to place cards or boards at the site.
Find out these three numbers
- What do drivers charge visitors now for the usual trips?
- How many drivers would sign up to a printed price?
- Would drivers pay a small fee to be on the list?
A comparison from the book
The ten hubs. Appendix
"region where the rules are visibly kept: clean, priced, and honest, with a complaints line"
A posted price and a line that answers make the fair driver the one visitors choose.
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.