Idea 6 of 500. Cluster 1: Stay longer (the $2.4 billion gap)
Forest 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
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
Find one piece of forest or estate land near a lake or reservoir, within 3 hours of Colombo, whose owner would lease it or go into partnership. Sketch the village: 20 lodges among the trees, a covered pool, bikes and a lake. Then ask 30 families in Colombo and abroad whether they would book a week there over the school holidays, and at what price. Their answers are your first business plan.
- Who pays first
- A family in Colombo or visiting from abroad who wants a week away with the children, with everything in one place and nothing to organise.
- What leaves today
- Families take a night here and a night there, or take the holiday abroad, and the island earns one night where it could have earned a week.
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
Idea 6 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.