Starter Kit. Idea 468 of 500. Cluster 25
Cricket tourism packages built around the international calendar and the domestic grounds
The mechanism, from the book
The country's best-known export is cricket, and little of the business around it is built at home.
The first step
Take the next international home series and draft a 5-night package around one match: tickets, a guesthouse near the ground, a day watching domestic cricket at a club ground, and a dinner with a former player. Price it per person and post it to 2 or 3 travelling supporters' groups abroad. The proof is enquiries with dates attached, or a single paid booking.
- Who pays first
- A travelling supporters' group from another cricket nation, which already follows its team abroad and would rather someone local sorted the tickets and rooms.
- What leaves today
- Visiting fans book through operators in their own countries, so the package margin leaves and the domestic grounds earn nothing from the international calendar.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask how a registered tour operator can sell packages built around matches.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how to register a tour business that sells packages abroad.
Check before you spend
Confirm how match tickets can lawfully be bought and resold inside a package, the tour operator registration, and insurance for travellers.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a fan abroad pay for a five-night package?
- How many tickets can you secure for one match?
- What does a guesthouse near the ground charge on match days?
A comparison from the book
The Matterhorn. Chapter Five
"something no marketing budget can buy: a story that people already knew"
Fans already know the grounds and the players. Sell the story with the seat.
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.