A Study on Agrotourism Development in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Tourism is the one of the largest industries in the world as well as in Sri Lanka and is the fourth largest earner of foreign exchange the national economy with positive and negative aspects. However agro tourism will not replace traditional tourism but will hopefully introduce a more sustainable form of tourism to the country. Agro based tourism is part of rural tourism and relates to tourism on farms. Agriculture has always been deeply related with the social, cultural and economic aspects of Sri Lankan history.

The study was conducted to estimate supply side as well as demand side feasibility. Supply side feasibility was conducted in Horana destination site. A tourists’ opinion survey was conducted to collect the prospective of tourists at the departure launch of Bandaranayake International Airport. Feasibility of the location was measured by an assessment tool, which was developed by Sustainable Tourism Pty Ltd in Queensland, Australia. Since it is positive, developed the hypothetical sustainable tourism destination with stakeholder analysis. The demand side survey was carried out through face-to-face interview.

As a conclusion Based on the potential index proposed destination falls to the “High potential zone category” but marginally. Stakeholders analysis implies that lot of marketing promotions have to be done, in local as well as international level, for agro tourism development in Sri Lanka. There were significant correlations between willing to pay for the facility with age, nationality, agro tourism familiarity, and experience and education level. Based on the regression can be concluded, willingness to pay has positive significant relationship with education and experience on agro tourism. Sri Lanka has a great potential to the development of agro-tourism, because of natural conditions and different types of agro products as well as variety of rural traditions, festivals.

Key terms: Agro tourism, Supply side feasibility, Demand side feasibility, willingness to pay, Contingency valuation