Sri Lanka’s first long-distance trail empowers 60 micro, small, and medium enterprises to seize emerging business prospects

In a groundbreaking event, sixty micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) from the Central and Uva provinces converged at the Darrawella Club, unveiling their innovative strategies poised to capitalize on the economic growth opportunities emerging from The Pekoe Trail. These enterprising individuals, partaking in The Pekoe Trail Business Incubator, passionately shared their transformational business plans geared towards job creation and investments in new products and services along the trail’s extensive 300-kilometer expanse, to industry stakeholders, including representatives from the Ministry of Tourism, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, regional plantation companies, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Pekoe Trail Business Incubator is an initiative of the Tourism Resilience Project (TRP), which is funded by the European Union with additional support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The incubator is designed to build the capacity of new and existing tourism MSMEs along The Pekoe Trail through training, mentoring, and business advisory services. The ultimate aim is to increase the availability of high-quality products and services along the trail and create opportunities for employment and rural economic development that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. The program was implemented by business incubation specialists, Gadfly Innovation.

The incubator, which commenced in February 2023, attracted interest from 112 tourism MSMEs that participated in workshops held in Hanthana, Hatton, Haputale, Ella, and Nuwara Eliya. The workshops coached entrepreneurs on a range of topics such as business resilience, customer experience, sustainable business practices, and tourism marketing.