Starter Kit. Idea 94 of 500. Cluster 4
Leopard-tracking days at Yala and Wilpattu with a limit on vehicles and a premium price
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
Talk to three jeep owners at Yala or Wilpattu about running a premium day with fewer vehicles and a naturalist guide. Agree a vehicle limit and a price between you, then offer the day to wildlife photographers and luxury travel advisers abroad. A handful of deposits at the premium price is the proof.
- Who pays first
- Wildlife photographers and serious travellers who dislike crowded jeeps and pay a premium for a quiet sighting.
- What leaves today
- Crowded jeeps cheapen the parks and the price; fewer vehicles at a premium earn more from each visitor and protect the leopards.
Ask first
- Department of Wildlife Conservation. Ask whether a premium tour with few vehicles can operate in the parks, and how.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether premium safari operators need any registration.
Check before you spend
Whether the park allows a limited, premium service, that drivers and trackers are licensed, and that wildlife rules are never broken for a sighting.
Find out these three numbers
- What will visitors pay for a day with few vehicles?
- How many vehicles crowd a leopard sighting now?
- What does a day with a tracker and naturalist cost to run?
A comparison from the book
Venice. Chapter Five
"the nerve to turn away the kind of visitor who brings the least"
Fewer vehicles and a higher price bring more value with less harm.
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.