Starter Kit. Idea 92 of 500. Cluster 4
A "what's on tonight" service for each tourist town, printed and online, updated daily
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
Walk through a tourist town you know on a Monday and collect every event, performance, dinner and market for the week. Print one page listing tonight's events and hand it to every guesthouse, then ask owners to count guests who went to something. A few guests extending by a night is the proof.
- Who pays first
- Guesthouse owners who want to keep guests another night, and event organisers who want an audience.
- What leaves today
- Events in every town run with empty seats while visitors move on by bus; a daily list joins the two and adds nights.
Ask first
- Information and Communication Technology Agency. Ask whether they support local information services for tourist towns.
- Data Protection Authority. Ask what rules apply to collecting visitors' phone numbers or email addresses.
Check before you spend
That every listing is checked and up to date, that businesses agree to be listed, and how any visitor data collected is protected.
Find out these three numbers
- How many events happen in this town on an ordinary night?
- What will a business pay to be listed?
- How many visitors would use the service each week?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt. Chapter Five
"an app that shows you live views from cameras all over the mountain and what is on in the village today and tomorrow"
Zermatt's app tells visitors what is on today, which keeps them another night.
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.