New tour app brings heritage in Colombo to life

Dutch heritage professionals are working together with locals in Colombo for a new tour app that makes shared and Sri Lankan heritage accessible.

Cultural tourism to preserve heritage

Colombo is the newest addition to the iDiscover APPXMAP series. iDiscover is a non-profit initiative to promote historic neighbourhoods in Asia as attractive cultural destinations. They work in places like Yangon, Jakarta, Manila and Chiang Mai where heritage is at risk. It is much needed as old buildings are being demolished right before our eyes, and the intangible heritage – memories, stories and collective identity – might disappear along with the buildings.

Working with locals

For the Colombo project, the iDiscover teamed up with Heritage Hands-On from Amsterdam and the newly established Colombo Heritage Collective, a joint initiative of locals from PWA Architects, Cantaloupe Hotels and Agency RED. In developing this app, the team collected and integrated stories of local inhabitants about the historical city which still has traces of the Dutch presence in the past. 

Below, Ester van Steekelenburg and Hasti Tarekat from Heritage Hands-On talk about how they kickstarted the project:

“In March, we spent a week hunting down traces of the Dutch East India Company in Colombo’s Fort district and getting lost in the alleys of the Pettah Market. We jumped in a tuk-tuk to criss-cross the streets of Kotahena, the city’s religious hotspot, and learned about the little-known Malay heritage on Slave Island. We were lucky to meet so many interesting people on our way and invited them for tea at the iconic Grand Oriental Hotel in Fort. Much to our delight, over 50 curious locals came to the workshop. We talked about the spirit of a place, shared stories of the past and mapped their favourite places from the present.”

Further steps

The team will continue to work with local professionals to create illustrated maps and stories for three neighbourhoods. iDiscover Colombo is planned to launch this summer.

This project was supported by the Shared Cultural Heritage Matching Fund.