Starter Kit. Idea 483 of 500. Cluster 26
Nuwara Eliya: a cool-climate wellness and tea town, not a faded hill station
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
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.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask how a wellness stay on a tea estate can be registered and listed.
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what a room giving massages to paying guests must meet.
Check before you spend
Confirm the estate's written permission, that the massage therapist is trained, and that the rooms are registered for visitors.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a couple pay for a wellness weekend?
- What does the estate charge for the visitor room?
- How many couples would book in a month?
A comparison from the book
The Matterhorn. Chapter Five
"The answer is that the Matterhorn is not famous because it is beautiful."
A cool climate is not enough. The town has to be made known for wellness, one stay at a time.
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.