Starter Kit. Idea 477 of 500. Cluster 26
Colombo: the Pettah as a managed market street, cleaned, lit and sold to visitors as the best bazaar in Asia
The mechanism, from the book
Every city has one thing it could be known for, and each is currently known for nothing in particular.
The first step
Pick one street in the Pettah and walk it with a notebook, listing the traders whose goods a visitor would buy. Ask 5 of them whether they would pay a small monthly fee toward lighting, cleaning and a printed street map. Then offer a 2-hour guided bazaar walk to guests at 3 Colombo hotels at a set price. Paying walkers and willing traders together are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A visitor with a night or two in Colombo who wants the real market, with a guide who knows which stall sells what.
- What leaves today
- Visitors pass through Colombo on the way to somewhere else, and the Pettah's trade reaches them, if at all, through shops elsewhere at a markup.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask what the council would allow traders to add: lights, signs or cleaning.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a managed market street could be promoted to visitors.
Check before you spend
Confirm the traders' written agreement on the monthly fee and how it is spent, and council permission for lights, signs and cleaning on the street.
Find out these three numbers
- What monthly fee would each trader pay?
- What do lighting, cleaning and a printed map cost each month?
- How many visitors walk the street on a normal day?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"People will pay Rs 100 or 1,000 to use something clean"
Visitors pay for clean and lit. Charge fairly for it and spend the fee where they can see it.
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.