Idea 491 of 500. Cluster 27: The north and the east
Trincomalee's Dutch fort and Koneswaram as one managed site, with a shop and a guide service
The mechanism, from the book
The land, the lagoons and the savings of families abroad are waiting. What comes first is the small business.
Every idea in cluster 27 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Walk both sites in one day with a notebook and time the route a visitor would take between the fort and the temple. Write a 2-hour guided tour covering both, check it with the temple's management, and offer it at a fixed price to guests at 3 local hotels. The count of paid tours in a month, and what visitors ask to buy afterwards, shapes the shop.
- Who pays first
- A visitor or pilgrim who arrives with no one to explain the site, and pays for a guide who knows its history and its customs.
- What leaves today
- Visitors see two great sites without explanation and leave without spending, so the guiding, the shop and the story earn nothing locally.
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. ThreeWhat We Have Already Built
Jaffna in what we have already built - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
A nurse who comes home with a credential and not only savings
More from cluster 27
- 486Palmyrah co-operatives owning the processing, the way the coconut list works for the south
- 487Jaffna heritage stays in the old Dutch and Jaffna houses, restored by the families abroad
- 488Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu farm co-operatives with a cold chain to Colombo
- 489Batticaloa lagoon tourism: the singing fish, the kayaks, the prawns, sold as a week
- 490Technical colleges in Jaffna and Batticaloa funded by families abroad, with the employers at the table
- 492Passikudah as a family resort town with the standard set by the residents, not the chains
Idea 491 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.