Ecotourism is a golden opportunity to Sri Lanka

Ecotourism is a golden opportunity to Sri Lanka, since it has the required natural resources. Tourism is a good foreign income earner and ecotourism is an emerging that Sri Lanka needs to capitalize on. To identify the current level of ecotourism and the potential of five star hotels to adapt this concept this investigation is conducted. 

The problem statement of this investigation is to identify the challenges and barriers faced by five star hotels when implementing ecotourism. The objectives which this investigation hopes to achieve are to measure the current level of awareness of ecotourism in Sri Lanka, to identify the challenges and barriers faced by five star hotels when implementing ecotourism, to identify the willingness of five star hotels to invest in ecotourism projects and finally to develop a strategic plan to overcome these challenges and barriers faced by five star hotels.

The population from which the sample was selected are all hotels listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange. Hotels have various levels like 3 star, four star and five star it is impossible to investigate all, so the cluster sampling technique was utilized to select a sample of 6 five star hotels located in Colombo and are listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange.

Secondary data was collected from various sources like newspaper articles, corporate publications, government publications, websites etc. The findings of this analysis indicate that the level of awareness of Sri Lanka is low, and there is a great lack of support for ecotourism from the government. The main challenges and barriers faced were incompetent tourist guides, bad infrastructure, natural disasters, lack of cultural endowments, competition, lack of government support, Lack of involvement of community and language barriers.

Tourism in Sri Lanka

Tourism is a major income earner for Sri Lanka and the tourism ministry has been incorporated for than 40 years. As mentioned above ecotourism has been introduced for more than 10 years yet, no proper support has been provided by the ministry. There are many officers and managers within the ministry who have the power and the required resources to develop ecotourism. Since ecotourism not only bring income but also protects the natural resources while developing the rural areas of the country. Having many natural resources like those mentioned above ecotourism is a great opportunity for the country. Since it has a combination of wildlife, forests, culture and interesting ancient cities Sri Lanka is surely an ecotourist’s destination. 

The five star hotels alone cannot successfully implement ecotourism in Sri Lanka since it requires a lot of investment. Therefore it is important for the government to contribute for the development of ecotourism. From the data analysis given above it is clear that Cinnamon grand is the most dedicated five star hotel for the implementation of ecotourism. The other hotels are in the initial stage of identifying ecotourism while Hilton does not speak of ecotourism at all. The SLEF along with the government need to create awareness of ecotourism attained.     

The major challenges and barriers faced by hotels when implementing ecotourism have been identified and the strategic plan provides solutions that need to be adapted by the hotels in order to implement ecotourism in Sri Lanka. This plan is aimed at the managers of five star hotels and also for the government of Sri Lanka to identify the importance of their support in order to effectively develop ecotourism.