Starter Kit. Idea 84 of 500. Cluster 4
Cycling tours through villages
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
Ride one 20-kilometre loop through villages near your town and note three stops worth making: a potter, a paddy, a tea shop. Hire four bicycles, take four guests from a guesthouse on a trial at a stated price, and ask each for a review. Paid guests, and the guesthouse asking for a weekly slot, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Active visitors who want to see villages at the speed of a bicycle, and guesthouses that want a morning activity.
- What leaves today
- Visitors see villages through a car window; a cycling tour pays the villages and fills a morning of the stay.
Ask first
- the Divisional Secretariat. Ask whether villages want visitors cycling through and whom to speak with.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a cycling tour business must register as a tourist service.
Check before you spend
That routes are safe from heavy traffic, that bikes are well maintained, and that insurance covers riders.
Find out these three numbers
- What will visitors pay for a half-day village cycle?
- What do good bikes and helmets cost each?
- How many guesthouses nearby would send guests?
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.