Friday, April 22, 2011

Business Plan for Saraii

Saraii team is in the process of preparing a business plan for Saraii... Final business plan and presentation is due in 2 weeks... Busy busy...!!! :-)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Our Location - Wilgamuwa, Sri Lanka

Saraii will be set up in the beautiful village of Wilgamuwa, in the Matale District of Sri Lanka. Saaraketha Pvt Limited an Agro Forestry company will partner with Saraii to provide us with land and some of their infrastructure. Saaraketha has a model farm that includes agri cultivation of different fruits and vegetables, hardwood trees, rice paddy fields, rain water harvesting areas.

They also have a state of the art knowledge center, which is called the CREATE Center (Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment), this center will support us with a location to train our employees, with 3G internet coverage, access to computers, conference room and presentation equipment. Saaraketha has also set up a demonstration kitchen and pavilion, which we will also utilize for preparation of our organic meals and for hosting lunch or dinner events. The pavilion can accommodate around 20 - 30 people comfortably, where they can relax and overlook the farm.

Saaraketha Organic farm is our first choice for setting up Saraii, but we do plan to conduct a field survey on different locations around the island.

Check out the video that explains what Saaraketha does, this also showcases Wilgamuwa and the area Saraii will be located.



Luxury Tent Designs

So what type of accommodation should we provide our customers? We are trying to be different by giving our customers a unique experience from lodging to food to excursions. One option we are thinking of is luxury tents. Sri Lankan hotels do not provide "luxury" tents as lodging, therefore this concept would be a refreshing change to what is on offer currently. Some models I have seen around the world that we can use as inspiration is as follows -

The following lodging option is offered at thEl Capitan Canyon, in Santa Barbara,California. This is simple, inexpensive to construct and is eco friendly. Still it would be comfortable at the end of the day after a long day of fun activities. This is priced at around 130 USD per tent.

On the right is my most favourite option. Aman-i-Khas, Rajasthan, India, is a super luxury tent option. This comes with either AC or fan, king size bed, separate bathing area, etc... but is very expensive, around 750 USD per night for a double unit.

Once our team comes down to Sri Lanka, we need to find an architect/designer who can support our vision of creating a similar, environmentally friendly accommodation option. As we aim to be "truly green", i am not in favour of providing air conditioning, as it utilizes a large amount energy and would emit carbon to the environment. We also plan to use local labour and local material, in order to support the communities as well as making our lodging more authentically Sri Lankan. I'm excited about seeing what we have in our minds actually being set up on the ground... :-)

Friday, April 15, 2011

Is Eco Tourism the way to go..?

Ecotourism is the fastest growing sector of the tourism industry and currently captures $77 billion of the global tourism market. According to Travel Weekly magazine, sustainable tourism could grow to 25% of the world's travel market by 2012, taking the value of the sector up to approximately $473 billion a year (Travel, 2009).


The end of a three decade long civil war in May of 2009 has opened doors for various economic opportunities in Sri Lanka. The peace dividend coupled with growing global demand for eco- tourism has encouraged the government to make the island nation the ideal destination for eco-tourism in the South Asian region. The government is trying to increase the number of inbound tourists from around 500,000 per year currently to 2.5 million annually over the next five years (Growth, 2010).The government of Sri Lanka is also targeting USD1bn in annual tourism revenue by 2015. The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Agency (SLTDA) said the industry directly employed 52,071 Sri Lankans in 2009, with another 72,899 jobs estimated to be indirectly created by the industry (Relation, 2009).


Asia is the largest source market region to Sri Lanka’s inbound tourism, followed by Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Australia, North America and Middle East. Sri Lanka attracts the largest number of tourists from India. In 2009, 447,890 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka out of which 83,634 were from India (18% of the market share). In 2009, average occupancy rate of the hospitality industry was recorded at 48.4% compared to 43.9% in 2008 (Relation, 2009).

Rural Wilgamuwa

Most rural communities in Sri Lanka are comprised of farmers who have basic education or no education at all. The community of Wilgamuwa is located in the dry zone of Sri Lanka (rainfall less than 1000 mm/yea) and characterized by high levels of poverty, energy and food insecurity. Land frag-mentation and acclimatization have resulted in many families now having too little land and food to support themselves and are in need of alternative, supplementary sources of income.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Counting the days...

Just 46 days to go for the Saraii team to visit Sri Lanka to set up our Eco Tourism venture and we are counting the days...

We are 4 MBA students from the Colorado State University, studying the Global Social Sustainable Enterprise (GSSE) program in the College of Business. Our Summer project is based on setting up a social venture that would address all aspects of the triple bottom line in a developing country.

My name is Charitha, i'm from Sri Lanka and i joined the GSSE program in order to gain the knowledge and experience needed to set up a social venture of my own. Coming into GSSE with a concept of setting up a Sustainable Tourism business in a rural farming community called Wilgamuwa in Sri Lanka, i have managed to team up with 3 other colleagues, Maria (from Madagascar), Shabda (from Nepal) and Bryce (from US) to make this concept a reality. We plan to offer a unique experience to our customers, with green sustainable housing powered by alternate energy, cultural and adventurous activities, and amazing organic and fresh traditional food.

The community will be an integral part of our business, with us providing them employment opportunities with Saraii and also at later stage by supporting them to have similar housing and energy options for their own households.

We will come down to Sri Lanka on the 31of May to conduct a field research, test the market and carry out the final plans of setting up our business.