Idea 5 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
Floating cabanas on the ancient reservoirs
The mechanism, from the book
If Sri Lanka earned what the Maldives earns per visitor, the visitors it already has would bring in $2.4 billion a year more.
Every idea in cluster 1 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Visit the office or committee responsible for one ancient reservoir and ask plainly what a small floating platform for guests would need, and write the answer down. In the same week, show a simple drawing to 10 guesthouse owners on that reservoir's edge and ask whether they would sell an evening or a night on the water to their guests. Written interest from three is enough to continue.
- Who pays first
- Guesthouses near the reservoirs that want a signature evening to sell their guests and a reason for them to stay another night.
- What leaves today
- The ancient reservoirs are among the dry zone's most striking sights, yet visitors photograph them from the bank and leave before evening.
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. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
The stay shortened by nearly a quarter, and the $2.4 billion gap
More from cluster 1
- 1Boutique eco-lodges with heritage views
- 2Luxury treehouse stays in forest margins
- 3Glamping with proper service, at sites with none
- 4Heritage homestays in family houses
- 6Forest holiday villages on the Center Parcs model: lodges among the trees, a covered pool, bikes and a lake, so a family stays a week, not a night
- 7Restored colonial estates as private villas
Idea 5 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.