Starter Kit. Idea 6 of 500. Cluster 1
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- Board of Investment of Sri Lanka. Ask what help a large leisure project with investors from abroad can get, and what they need.
- Central Environmental Authority. Ask what environmental assessment a holiday village among trees would need.
Check before you spend
Whether the land can be leased for a long term, whether clearing any trees needs permission, and what water supply a pool and lodges require.
Find out these three numbers
- How many families would book a full week rather than a night?
- What do the lodges, the pool and the lake cost to build?
- What would a family pay for a week with everything included?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka. Chapter Five
"Sri Lanka needs a product for them worth staying a week for"
A village built for a whole week answers the book's question of why nobody stays.
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.