Starter Kit. Idea 5 of 500. Cluster 1
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- the Divisional Secretariat. Ask who controls use of this reservoir and whom to approach for permission.
- Central Environmental Authority. Ask whether structures on a reservoir need an environmental review first.
Check before you spend
Who has authority over the water and the bank, whether farmers and fishers who use the tank agree, and what safety equipment guests need on water.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a guest pay for one night on the water?
- What does one safe floating cabana cost to build and moor?
- How do water levels change through the year at this reservoir?
A comparison from the book
Polonnaruwa hub. Appendix
"The hub is the heritage-rice brand, the floating cabanas on the tanks"
The book puts these cabanas at the heart of a rice and reservoir hub, not alone.
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.