Abstract:
The essence of the tourism industry is the Tourists. In accordance to that the study made an attempt to identify tourists' harassment at coastal belt in Sri Lanka. Nature of tourists' harassment and factors leading to this menace are some of the issues with not only negative but also significant effect on the growth of tourism. Therefore,the main objective of this study was to identify the nature and factors leading to this problem along the Sri. Lankan Coastal belt and to investigate whether the harassment situation has affected to the International tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka with special reference to Hikkaduwa and Unawatuna. Convenience sampling technique was used to sample a total 100 international tourists from Hikkaduwa and Unawatuna. Close ended and open ended questionnaires was used to collect data on nature of harassment: types/forms of harassment, most problematic harassers, hot-spots for harassment; and factors leading to harassment: Gender, Age, Travel companion, Purpose of visit, Travel experience of tourists. The study has conducted using the mixed methodology.
The most prevalent type of tourist harassment was pestering to buy goods and services. Local vendors were identified as the most problematic tourist harassers. Shopping centers were identified as the frequent hotspot of harassment in Hikkaduwa and Unawatuna. According to the factors influencing tourist harassment, results revealed that, majority of the male tourists were slightly more harassed than female tourists who visit Hikkaduwa and Unawatuna. 20-29 years age group tourists experienced slightly more harassment than the other age groups of tourists.
