Cultural Tourism and Museums

Abstract

The heritage of a country plays a key role in cultural tourism. In global tourism, this is identified as a rapidly growing segment. Mainly, this trend is set with people who professionally qualified and specialized in the relevant field and those who interest to review cultural heritages. This is evident by analyzing the number of tourists who visited places which are having cultural values in Sri Lanka. Gradually, the number of cultural tourists who visit museums and attend cultural or heritage performances are increasing. The cultural heritage can be divided into two aspects. • Tangible Heritage • Intangible Heritage Intangible cultural heritage does not only represent inherited traditions of the past, but also contemporary rural and urban practices in which diverse cultural groups take part; aspects of the preservation and conservation of cultural intangibles. Folk museums are available here in Sri Lanka for those who interested in intangible heritage of Sri Lanka. Folk Museum Anuradhapura The folk museum reflecting the lifestyle of the Nuwara Kalawiya rural peasantry and proves folk life constitutes the backbone of our culture. The Martin Wickrasinghe Museum of Folk Culture The museum currently holds over a thousand artifacts of Sri Lankan rural life, providing a vast and unique storehouse of knowledge of local folk culture and folk technology going back several centuries. Ambalangoda Mask Museum This museum is designed to introduce into the richness of the mask tradition of Ambalangoda. The museum, the workshop and the small library may serve as a centre for traditional arts and crafts and for research as well. When developing cultural tourism, the folk, traditional culture has faced many challenges in representing intangible heritance of Sri Lanka. Following highlights some of the future tasks required to strengthen the tourism industry in the country.