Abstract:
Tourism has become one of the fastest growing industry in the world. It contributes to the global economy as well as provides job opportunities. Tourists have many purposes when travelling to a different destination. From diverse purposes of travellinv„wildlife tourism had gain much priority recently. Wildlife tourism involves activities that interact with wildlife mostly in national parks and protected areas. Ruhuna Yala national park and Horton Plains national park are the most popular national parks for wildlife tourism in Sri Lanka. Therefore due to highest number of tourist arrivals impact on wildlife and environment is negative. Researcher had identified an empirical gap in the context. There are no researches regarding socio-economic determinants of wildlife tourism that effect on tourism service suppliers. The objective of this research study is to identify socio-economic factors of wildlife tourism that impact on tourism service suppliers in Ruhuna Yala national park and Horton Plains national park. Primary data collected from 100 tourism service suppliers from both Ruhuna Yala national park and Horton Plains national park through self-evaluated questionnaire. In order to achieve the objective of this research, the researcher conducted exploratory factor analysis method and found five factors impact on tourism service suppliers. Reliability of this research study is 0.815. This study is evident that community health and safety, host community, investment, social cohesion and income distribution are the factors that effect on the tourism service suppliers. Further, based on the factors, researcher recommends maintaining the code of conduct, ensuring the CSR activities by tourism establishments and implement of a health policy, confirmation of fair income distribution and encouraging foreign investments can be used to increase the favorable environment for tourism service suppliers to perform a memorable experience to tourist.
