Real Recognizes Real
An Open Letter to Creators on the Spice Trail Code for Collaboration
Every year, we get a fair number of requests from digital creators to stay at the Spice Trail and tell our story: photographers, filmmakers, bloggers, travel journalists … We appreciate the interest and genuinely enjoy hearing from all these creators. But only a handful of those requests actually materialize, and there’s good reason for that. You can only tell a good story if you’ve lived it in some way or the other. Years ago, Phoebe and Ethan, a pair of content creators, stayed at the Spice Trail and gave us a series of stories about their life here. It was an authentic and tastefully put together series of images and videos, cropped to size, organized into chronologically named folders, and delivered with a content plan. It was not only professional, but also thoughtful. Phoebe and Ethan had obviously thought about how we would actually use their work, considering the people on the receiving end. That’s why they kind of set the bar for us when it came to creative collaborations.
So, for all the creators reaching out for future collaborations, we put together what really matters when it comes to sharing the Spice Trail story. From dependability, respecting local lives, ability to pay attention and meticulous file organization to genuine POVs, this is what we value in collaborators.
Noticing the Many Threads that Hold up a Wider Experience
It’s not easy to transfer an experience into a flat screen for someone viewing it within a completely different context. This is why we really appreciate creators who understand that the Spice Trail good life is not confined to the property. It’s a way of life that threads the ocean, moves through food, the stories you hear from the local folk, to the nearby fishing towns, foragers, surf and wildlife. It’s the sum of all those things. This is what we want our collaborators to notice.
Our resort and villas are part of that bigger experience, and we’ve worked with a few content creators who tapped into it. Henry Hutchison is a good example of this approach. His work with us captured the Arugam Bay experience through adventure, wildlife, beach life, and the wider East Coast. Much of what he created was captured casually on his phone, which retained his stories’ natural, personal quality.
Toby Butler was another good creator we worked with. His work moves through fishermen, farmers, local markets, elephants, wildlife, landscapes, and surfing. He notices the destination as a living place, beyond a collection of attractive views. His visual approach also translates the Spice Trail character naturally: grounded, curious, and interested in what’s actually there.
A content creator who brought in a fresh viewpoint was Alex Situnayake. What he created for the Spice Trail and LBK went beyond our resort and restaurant, bringing in a unique point of view as a surfer. They were the kind of stories that resonated with the many guests whose stay with us involved chasing waves.
Just honest, wider stories built through attention and curiosity.
Different Eyes, Different Paths to the Good Life
A room is a room, until you understand how it shapes someone's day. A pool is a pool, until you see kids who don’t even know each other’s names yet playing together in it. A restaurant is just a place to eat nice food until you see an entire family being able to order for toddlers, grandparents and day-drinking cousins, without a problem.
When we worked with Alina Vdovenko, she transformed amenities to create a sense of lifestyle rather than cataloguing facilities. A good content creator notices not just places or just people, but the thoughtful pathways we’ve created for people to discover places. They understand that hospitality is not just about a list of shiny amenities we’ve built, but about how those things facilitate people living within a new locality with ease. Not just a place, not just people, but the magic that happens between them.
Sure, staged, glossed-up food photography that makes someone hungry is useful. But we think photography that captures food in its real environment, within the same settings it will be experienced in, is even better. This is exactly what Rajitha Dilhan’s photography delivers, capturing our LBK’s food during regular service using natural lighting and available setup rather than a staged studio shoot. What also stood out to us was his flexibility to adapt and work within busy operating environments like the Spice Trail and LBK. It’s just the kind of collaboration we really value.
The value of working with these different content creators is that they notice completely different things about the same place. It keeps our stories as diverse as the people who stay with us. It allows us to share the planned and unplanned paths that people take while living the good life at the Spice Trail.
The Creator Code We Call for in Collaborations
No generic, AI-scripted mush, please. We appreciate and value creators with their own perspectives of the world; the beautiful takes, the matter-of-fact views, the thought-provoking perspectives, the cheeky ones… When it comes to telling our story, a few things are more impressive than a genuinely rooted, human point of view that isn’t borrowed from TikTok trends. If you can add something genuine to the Spice Trail story, we’d be interested to see it.
As mentioned before, there’s a bigger story here than our resort and villas. We want creators who see that. Ahangama and Arugam Bay have their own personalities, rhythm, landscape, surf culture, and everyday pleasures. They are not interchangeable backdrops for the same holiday content. At the same time, we want creators who can notice how our amenities and offers fit within the context of real lives lived at the Spice Trail. Like how Spa Therapy treatments are designed around what guests actually need after days spent in the sun, surf, and outdoors; the transition from surf to spa to dinner; the sensory details of a treatment; the people behind the experience… The same goes for Little Bang Kitchen. LBK is not just a restaurant that happens to be part of our offer. It’s part of the Spice Trail rhythm. The kitchen, the preparation, the plating, the table, and the people who make it happen all have a place in the story. Sri Lankan favourites, Japanese-inspired dishes, sushi, comfort food, and the dinner that turns into a very long evening with no one left sober; or how food fuels the social side of being here through Sushi Night and live music at the LBK.
We look for natural and authentic stories about ordinary people and places adding up to extraordinary experiences. And we have a soft spot for stories that reveal the unexpected details of our locations and the lives lived there; you know, those moments that make you feel like the world is winking back at you. That’s the magic we’re looking for.
A large following doesn’t always mean authentic stories, and a blue checkmark bought from Meta doesn’t compensate for the lack of a good eye or the inability to notice subtle things. Finding, capturing and sharing the real story of a place takes time, patience, craft and a degree of empathy. Successfully building, organizing and delivering a project on time takes attention to detail as well as professional practice. These are not always guaranteed by the number of views and likes. That’s why we only team up with the ones whose work reflects these same benchmarks we’ve set to ensure we take care of our guests and what we offer at our resorts. We expect professionalism. Clear communication, realistic expectations, respect for agreed arrangements, and the ability to follow through. Sharing disorganized folders, broken links, and sloppily named files are pet peeves. These are not glamorous requirements, but they are the pragmatic aspects that make collaborations work.
So, if you are reaching out to the Spice Trail for a collaboration, we encourage you to send us your work with information that lines up with our creator code; email us here. Tell us what you notice and what you like to make. We are interested in your perspective, not just your platform insights. We want to understand what you bring to a story, how you work, how you’ll be sharing finished projects, and what your timelines are.
We may not always say yes, but we know that when the right people come together, something great happens. Real recognizes real. We look forward to meeting more of you.
