Regaining Missed Opportunities: The Role of Tourism in Post-war Development in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka had the opportunity to become one of the best tourism countries (TCs) in Asia immediately after independence in 1948. However, it missed opportunities on a number of occasions due to inappropriate economic policies, continuous political violence and war. Between 1983 and May 2009 the Sri Lankan tourism sector was seriously affected by nearly three decades of separatist war. Immediately after the end of the war, tourism in Sri Lanka bounced back and it has now become one of the main engines of economic growth in post-war Sri Lanka. In this article, a historical analysis has been undertaken to demonstrate how, despite its large tourism potential, Sri Lanka missed opportunities and fell far behind its Asian counterparts on a number of occasions. This article demonstrates that opportunities exist for the Sri Lankan tourism sector to play a vital role in the current post-war inclusive development strategy in terms of generating much needed foreign exchange, poverty alleviation via employment generation, accelerating economic growth and uplifting living standards of all Sri Lankans.     

Medical travellers’ perspectives in selecting in-patient services at selected private hospitals in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan government has clear plans to develop medical tourism as an industry. Availability of high-quality medical professionals and accredited hospitals has encouraged medical travellers to come to Sri Lanka and to expand the medical tourism industry in the country. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to describe medical travellers’ perspectives in seeking in-patient services at selected four private hospitals in Sri Lanka. Foreign national in-patients (n?=?252) were interviewed using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. The response rate was 93.25%. The majority (68.1%) were Maldivians followed by Indians (20.4%) and 51.1% sought surgical care. Availability of high-quality medical professionals (94.2%) and accredited hospitals (81.3%), easy visa (90.2%) were top reasons to select Sri Lanka. Medical travellers faced difficulties in communication (37.4%), transport (31.9%), accommodation (57%) and finding quality food (41.7%). The study recommends improvement of infrastructure and support services for medical travellers and that private hospitals obtain international accreditation to improve medical tourism potentials.     

Policy choices in South Asian tourism development

Government tourism initiatives in developing countries have been applauded by tourism scholars as a means of assisting a private sector that has insufficient resources and assuring public control of the industry's future. This article reviews the tourism development experience of seven South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldive Republic) on five policy options: public versus private tourism development; domestic versus international tourism; class versus mass tourism; centralization versus decentralization; and integrated versus enclave tourism. All of the governments in the region have been involved in tourism development to some degree, but they have shown considerable variation in their responses to these policy choices. Which choices are made by a specific country, it is suggested, will depend as much on political and cultural considerations as upon economic factors.     

Managing tourism and cultural heritage in historic towns: examples from Romania

Due to the impressive development of the cultural heritage tourism, there is an increasing need to investigate the relationship between tourism and cultural heritage management, in order to avoid conflicts that may occur from parallel, independent development of these activities. At present the Romanian historic towns face an increasing process of fast tourism development within many rehabilitation projects that take place on historic monuments. Assessing their tourism potential in a realistic way may help in developing sustainable tourism at cultural destinations. In this context, the assessment matrix method proposed by McKercher and du Cros is applied to 10 case studies of Romanian historic towns, as a first step in tourism development planning. A refinement of this method is proposed by considering the distribution of the qualifiers assigned to the indicators that are being assessed. The matrix method is shown to be a useful tool for a correlated approach to both tourism development and cultural heritage management.     

野生动物观赏旅游者的敬畏感体验：基于斯里兰卡大象旅游的实证研究

野生动物观赏旅游在唤起敬畏感方面有着巨大潜力,值得研究者多加重视。本研究以斯里兰卡大象旅游为例,试图对敬畏感所包含的4个维度（时间感、联通、浩瀚和适应）进行描述性分析,并对具有不同人口统计学特征或旅游行为特征以及到访不同野生动物生境下的旅游者所获得的敬畏感差异进行检验。采用独立样本T检验和单因素方差分析等方法对回收数据进行分析。结果表明,大多数旅游者获得较强的敬畏感,但旅游者之间存在一定差异。其中,女性、中年人或受过高等教育的旅游者能够获得更强的敬畏感;与大象拥有特定文化联系的斯里兰卡和印度游客体验到的浩瀚和适应感明显高于西方游客。此外,自然情境在旅游者获得的适应感方面亦发挥重要作用。     

Sustainable tourism and its use as a development strategy in Cambodia: a systematic literature review

Governments in many developing countries endorse sustainable tourism, despite associated practical limitations and challenges as a development strategy. Using the case of Cambodia, this paper illustrates how sustainable tourism issues in a developing country may be better understood through a systematic review of scattered relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature. This can help in identifying emergent themes and challenges, gaps in knowledge, and opportunities for future research. Analysis of 77 documents on Cambodia's sustainable tourism revealed themes and challenges relating to: (1) an emphasis on nature-based tourism (ecotourism); (2) calls for greater community engagement for sustainable outcomes; (3) stakeholder perceptions and values as drivers of tourism success; (4) cultural heritage as a key tourism attraction; and (5) foreign investment shaping Cambodia's tourism future. Unequal emphasis is given to key government policies for tourism development and there is limited practical guidance on how to realise a vision of sustainable tourism. There is a lack of consideration of how the socio-economic and cultural context affects sustainable tourism. The evidence suggests that sustainable tourism in Cambodia is questionable until fundamental economic, social capacity and policy issues are addressed, along with greater emphasis given to the tourism system's demand side.     

文化实践中非物质文化遗产的真实性:径山茶宴的再发明

文章通过对一名茶僧参与策划径山茶宴全过程的民族志研究,采用参与观察和深入访谈的研究方法,讨论和反思旅游文化背景下非物质文化遗产的再发明问题。文章从旅游文化和"真实性"的概念出发,讨论旅游研究领域对"光环"研究的缺失,提出关注文化实践中对光环的利用存在的问题,进一步探讨径山茶宴再发明过程中"谁需要真实性以及为什么"以及"如何使用真实性"两个核心问题,以期补充现有真实性讨论的局限性。笔者认为,遗产旅游文化是文化市场化的结果,具备其真实性,而遗产的光环促进着地方文化品牌的推广,径山茶宴在旅游发展背景下的遗产化过程呼吁我们反思非物质文化遗产认证存在的批量化、标准化以及文化多元性等问题。     

Tourists' Attitudes Toward Tea Tourism: A Case Study in Xinyang,China

Tea tourism as a new niche market has become more and more popular. Through a case study in Xinyang, China, this research explores tourists' attitudes and perceptions toward tea and tea tourism, identifies who the potential tea tourists are, and compares their attitudes with others. One hundred seventy-nine questionnaires were administered; one-way ANOVA and chi-square test were used based on their willingness of tea tourism. The results suggest that tea tourists and non-tea tourists have significant differences in terms of their attitudes toward tea drinking and their willingness of buying tea as souvenir. Tea tourists are mainly tea lovers driven by their high interest in tea and tea culture; they tend to be both males and females (yet females show a significant higher percentage than males), between ages 31–40, who have a positive attitude toward tea drinking, and who often drink tea. This research also provides some marketing suggestions for this niche market.     

Heritage Tourism in Rural Areas: Challenges for Improving Socio-economic Impacts

Many developing countries seek to utilize cultural heritage sites as resources for socio-economic development through heritage tourism. When rural area is the context of heritage tourism, effort is needed to establish linkages between tourism and the local economy by addressing the following issues: lack of skilled human resources, capital, access to credits, and other assistance; leakages; and dominance of urban players. This paper examines the impacts of heritage tourism on rural livelihoods using Borobudur in Central Java, Indonesia, as the case study. Further, it proposes rural industry promotion as one of the ways to establishing better linkages to tourism.     

Re-envisioning community-based heritage tourism in the old city of Nazareth

This study specifically examines the potential for heritage tourism development to promote cross-cultural dialog in the historic old city of Nazareth (Israel). The paper focuses on a case study of a small-scale heritage tourism venture that seeks to influence tourism development in Nazareth's old city. This is an exploratory case study that uses qualitative research methods including extensive participant observation and in-depth interviews with the venture's senior management group and selected employees. Study findings indicate a model of the relationship between community-based tourism development, heritage, and peace-building in a city that has experienced a wide range of cross-cultural conflicts. This model represents an alternative view to the notion that heritage serves to enhance differences and dissonance between different cultural groups. In contrast, findings from this study suggest that heritage in the form of tourism can help create shared interests between different communities in settings characterized by cross-cultural conflict.     

中国世界遗产类旅游产品的感知度研究

中国世界遗产地开发旅游已经成为一种热潮。事实也说明遗产地确实具有开发旅游的先天优势。但是,通过在北京、广州、珠海三地的问卷调查发现,国内各世界遗产地在国内游客的感知中并未处于相同的地位,而存在较大的差异。成为世界遗产地并不就意味着绝对的旅游吸引力。世界遗产地名誉的获得是影响游客感知、促进旅游发展的一个重要因素,而非唯一因素。决定旅游地发展的往往是多方面因素共同作用的结果。因此,世界遗产地开发旅游不能仅仅依靠遗产地名誉的获得,而要结合实际、合理规划、恰当宣传．进而促进其旅游的全面发展。     

Serious pilgrims and frivolous tourists the chimera of tourism in the pilgrimages of Sri Lanka

Two important and recently developed currents of pilgrimage in Sri Lanka—the appearance at certain sites of fun-loving and raucous Sinhalese youths, and at others of wealthy Tamil Hindus interested in temple architecture—would appear to be well explained by the concept of tourism. On closer inspection, however, this appearance can be shown to be illusory and to disguise the real meaning of these behaviors within indigenous Sri Lankan modalities of pilgrimage. The paper explores the meaning and utility of the terms “tourism” and “pilgrimage,” and concludes by offering a more useful definition of them than the ones our language persuades us to employ.     

旅游发展影响下农业文化遗产社区韧性感知研究——以河北宣化传统葡萄园为例

农业文化遗产作为重要的旅游资源之一,其动态保护关系到遗产地社区的生计选择、农民的生活改善和乡村的可持续发展。面对旅游活动所带来的一系列人为干扰,遗产地社区如何应对关系到农业文化遗产的可持续利用以及乡村振兴的实现。本文以河北宣化传统葡萄园为例,运用基于地方居民感知的指标测量法,针对社区居民进行旅游发展影响下农业文化遗产地社区韧性感知研究。研究结果显示：（1）旅游发展对于农业文化遗产地社区存在着较为积极的影响;（2）农业文化遗产地社区韧性各个子系统受旅游发展影响程度存在着一定的差别,由高到低分别为社会、生态、文化、经济、制度;（3）各旅游因子发挥了不同的作用,其作用程度由高到低分别为旅游设施因子、旅游形象因子、旅游产品因子和旅游规模因子。本文探究了农业文化遗产社区韧性在旅游发展中受到何种影响,分析其形成原因,以期实现农业文化遗产保护与可持续旅游的协调发展。     

A Dynamic Model for Managing Cultural Tourism

This research adopts the system dynamics method from complex science to develop a model to address conflicts of development among interest groups in the context of cultural tourism. This study deploys various surveys at different cultural heritage sites and incorporates findings from a literature review of industrial development motives within the fields of economics, geography, sociology, and tourism. Consequently, this research identifies critical factors related to the evolution of the cultural tourism system. Based on these factors, we present a dynamic model including (1) 3 level variables, (2) 6 rate variables, and (3) 35 auxiliary variables. We discuss the three sub-systems of the derived model and the relationships among these sub-systems. The dynamic model suggests that cultural tourism managers should evaluate the benefits of cultural assets, protective investment ratios, crowding ratios, and resident tourism participation ratios as key leverage points in sustaining the development of cultural tourism.     

Developing a new Multi‐Nation tourism region: Thai perspectives on the Mekong initiatives

This article examines Thailand's recent tourism policy and its attitudes towards international tourism development collaboration in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Thailand is the major tourist destination country and gateway for international tourists visiting the region, and is a leader of Mekong tourism developments. This paper considers the Thai perspective on its tourism development, and examines current co‐operative activities in the Mekong region in the context of its own tourism industry. A number of research needs are sketched out as a proposed framework for future studies.     

The Potential for Developing Community-based Tourism among the Bedouins in the Badia of Jordan

Population displacement through desertification has affected the socioeconomic and cultural development of Jordan's Badia desert. To counterbalance this change, it is important to preserve and revitalise cultural heritage as a source of tourism development in the desert. One possible way of revitalising the Badia regions is to highlight their cultural resources for tourism. The goal of the study is to find alternative tourism resources based on understanding the potential tourism resources in the Badia and to attract tourists for cultural heritage experiences. The analysis suggests new opportunities for cultural heritage tourism with elements of Bedouin material and non-material culture. Solutions include establishing community-based Bedouin tourism that involves the local people in partnership with the BRDC,1 expanding the tourism network to include the Badia region using resources such as folkways and archaeology to enrich the experience, building a rest house; and erecting a Bedouin heritage village. This will generate income and give Badia indigenous communities additional revenue, thereby positively impacting the regional and national economy.     

Integrating tea and tourism: a sustainable livelihoods approach

Abstract

As an agricultural product with strong social and cultural connotations, the production and consumption of tea have high potential to be integrated with tourism to enhance community livelihood sustainability. A sustainable livelihood approach is used in a tea tourism context in Hetu Town, Anhui Province, China, to examine critically the interactive relationships between tea and tourism. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with management officials, community leaders, tea industry representatives and village residents in four field investigations in 2015 and 2016. Improvement in community livelihood sustainability was identified through enhancement of livelihood diversity and choice. However, impacts on household livelihood sustainability varied as tourism participation is restricted by level of livelihood assets. The increase of the within-community income gap may generate social problems in the long run. The current level of tea and tourism integration is limited. The history, culture and traditions related with tea are not widely disseminated by local tea producers. Opportunities for in-depth and diversified tea tourism experiences are being recognized, which call for partnership with those involved in tourism. Practical implications are discussed to enhance tea and tourism integration, boost local participation, enhance local benefits, and particularly, to engage those with lower levels of livelihood assets.     

Bundling attractions for rural tourism development

Tourism is often regarded as a viable solution to economic crisis, especially for remote areas without many development options. While many tourism destinations have strong cultural or heritage assets, not all destinations have primary attractions that can bring visitors to the region. Rather than developing special interest “themes”, rural areas that do not have enough of any one type of tourism resource to act as a primary draw may consider bundling different attraction types to increase visitation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the preferences of visitors to secondary heritage sites and explore the relationship between heritage tourism and alternative, non-heritage activities in rural areas. Findings revealed that motivation to visit small-scale heritage sites consisted of two dimensions: learning and recreation. The two motivational dimensions influenced visitors’ interest in different heritage attractions and likelihood of visiting heritage tourism “scenarios”. As for alternative activities, there was a cluster of “popular” activities that were enjoyed by both learning-oriented and recreation-oriented respondents, but recreation-oriented visitors were more interested in nature-based activities and sport-related activities than learning-oriented visitors. Findings can help rural communities improve secondary attractions and diversify their tourism product by bundling heritage attractions with non-heritage activities.     

世界文化遗产旅游深度开发研究——以曲阜为例

本文以旅游者问卷调查为基础,对曲阜世界文化遗产旅游深度开发进行了研究.认为文化遗产旅游的深度开发应该有两个纬度的内容:基于遗产特性的产品体系的深化与扩展以及旅游产品质量的提升.用因子聚类归纳了曲阜文化遗产内涵的产品表现形式,分析了产品体系开发的路径;通过满意度分析,明确了完善旅游服务质量的对策,进而提出了文化遗产旅游深度开发的基本框架模型.