Starter Kit. Idea 76 of 500. Cluster 4
Private guided tours led by historians and archaeologists
The mechanism, from the book
An app that tells people what is happening tonight converts a day visit into a 2-night stay.
The first step
Contact a history or archaeology lecturer, or a graduate student, and ask whether they would lead a private half-day tour at a weekend. Price it well above a standard guide, and offer it to two luxury travel advisers abroad and to a boutique hotel's concierge. One booking at the full price proves visitors will pay for depth.
- Who pays first
- Well-read travellers and luxury advisers who want expertise, not a script, and will pay a premium for it.
- What leaves today
- Deep knowledge of the sites sits unused in the universities while visitors hear a rushed script; a paid tour pays for the expertise.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask how a guide becomes licensed and whether historians need the same licence.
- Central Cultural Fund. Ask whether their own archaeologists ever lead private tours.
Check before you spend
Whether historians leading tours need a guide licence, and that every claim made on tour is accurate and agreed with the site.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a visitor pay for a tour led by a historian?
- How many historians and archaeologists would lead tours?
- Which agents abroad sell specialist heritage tours?
A comparison from the book
Polonnaruwa hub. Appendix
"the ancient irrigation explained by the engineers who still run it"
The book wants the past explained by the people who really know it.
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.