Abstract:
In Sri Lanka, travel agencies are prominent in tourism industry in promoting cultural heritages
through the medium of tour packages. A tour package is an effective promotional method
in attracting tourists at the popular and even lesser known heritage attractions. Though
there are more than 100 private and state museums located in the country, mostly Colombo
National Museum is being highly promoted in tourism industry. This study discusses how
the museums are being promoted for the tourists in the industry via tour packages. Tour
packages are offered as two categories such as tailor-made and ready-made packages, but the
research is based on the ready-made tour packages offered by the travel agencies. Research
problem is ‘how far do travel agencies in Sri Lanka support in promoting museums through
tour packages?’ Major objective of the research is to identify the involvement of the travel
agencies in promoting museums in Sri Lanka. Minor objectives are to identify ‘what are the
travel agencies involving in promoting museums, to observe particular museum which are
being promoted by the agencies and to identify promotional strategies practiced by the travel
agencies in promoting museums’. Both primary and secondary data were used while primary
data were collected from a sample of 25 travel agencies with their official web sites where
culture based tour packages are advertised in several ways. It was identified that a considerable
amount of travel agencies have not included museums in their tour packages and mostly
90% of agencies promote Colombo National Museum and it is only 20% of agencies have
included museum as a symbol of promoting tour packages. Since museum is prominent in
cultural heritage in a country, it is the responsible of the travel agencies as a service provider
in the tourism sector, to promote not only the Colombo National Museum but also the other
national museums, site museums, private museums, and state museums which are significant
in various aspects of heritage in Sri Lanka.
