A study of the contribution of Rural Tourism as a development strategy to develop the household economy of rural areas in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The key objective of this paper is to analyze the contribution of rural tourism as a preliminary instrument of development of the household economy of rural areas in Sri Lanka. Potentials of Rural Tourism are very high as a household economic development strategy compared to other tourism related development strategies. As an island with rich natural resources and human capital, Sri Lanka has also been using Rural Tourism as an economic activity in rural areas like Meemure, Dambulla, Heeloya & Lakegala. However, using derived results the study has reviewed that the current contribution of those activities is not sufficient to eliminate various crucial economic matters of those households. The study used primary & secondary data which gathered by field trips, interviews with villagers & private tourist agents, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Department of Census & Statistics Sri Lanka & Ministry of Finance Sri Lanka to derive results using of Regressions & Correlation Co-efficient. Therefore the paper has discussed the importance of deriving a goal-oriented Rural Tourism frame work to accomplish the goal optimization of Rural Tourism activities as a household economic development strategy which has especially defined for Sri Lanka. Similarly the paper includes about other limitations which are existing at the moment regarding Rural Tourism activities such as matter of less attention of the government towards Rural Tourism as an economic activity, matter of intervention of multi-national organizations to organize Rural Tourism activities, difficulties of promoting Rural Tourism activities, influence of less developed infrastructure of rural sector on Rural Tourism and lack of a specific policy frame work for Rural Tourism in Sri Lanka with various methods to overcome these identified matters, which lead to improve the significance and the contribution of rural tourism activities as an economic development strategy to develop the household economy of rural areas in Sri Lanka.