Nuwara Eliya: a cool-climate wellness and tea town, not a faded hill station

A first step

Book the visitor room of a tea factory or a guesthouse on an estate and run one weekend: a morning walk through the tea, a tasting of 5 teas, a massage and early nights in the cool. Price it for 2 people and offer it to a professional or expatriate group in Colombo that wants to escape the heat. A handful of couples booked makes it a business.

Who pays first

A Colombo couple, or a visitor tired of the coast's heat, who want a quiet weekend of tea, walking and rest in the cool.

What leaves today

Tea leaves the hills as a commodity and visitors stay one night for the view, so the value of the place itself is never charged for.

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. SeventeenOne Building
  One building, and what a city could be known for

More from cluster 26

• 476Colombo: a night market on the Galle Face green run to a standard, every weekend
• 477Colombo: the Pettah as a managed market street, cleaned, lit and sold to visitors as the best bazaar in Asia
• 478Kandy: the lake promenade with cafés and evening performances, not only the temple
• 479Galle: a residents' company that owns the Fort's tourist lets and keeps the residents in
• 480Jaffna: a culinary capital, the crab and the palmyrah sold as a cuisine
• 481Trincomalee: the harbour as a sailing and diving centre for the Bay of Bengal

All 10 ideas in this cluster