Abstract:
Cultural, Heritage tourism is one of the and fastest growing industry in Sri Lanka. Global tourism markets and the Cultural, Heritage tourism covers all aspects of travel that provide an opportunity for visitors to learn about other areas history and lifestyle. Even though the tourist arrival increased during the post war period, especially in north province, there is no significant improvement in the visitor arrival to Keerimalai kovil. Also, there are several cultural heritage places available, but the Keerimalai kovil is not popular as others. Since the local and foreign tourists are interested in cultural tourism there is a potential to improve the popularity. Therefore, researcher focused to explore the visitor profile towards Keerimalai kovil and the current status of destination attributes in order to promote the tourist arrival to Keerimalai kovil with the research title "Identification ofpotentials to Develop Cultural Heritage Tourism in Keerimalai Kovil". The research objectives are to identify the visitor profile of Keerimalai Kovil and to identify the destination attributes to develop cultural tourism in Keerimalai Kovil. Researcher used following questions to reach the research objectives. What is the visitor profile of Keerimalai Kovil? And what are the destination attributes to develop cultural tourism in Keerimalai Kovil?
Questionnaire method has been used to collect data and selected 100 number of tourist from Keerimalai kovil. Collected the data during three months of period without depend on specific month for reliable results. Questions are designed to collect both demographic factors of the visitors to identify the visitor profile and destination attribute to rank in order to identify the current status of destination attribute. Collected data analyzed the data using descriptive analysis. The key finding are as follows: males are highly participated in the cultural tourism activities than female, 30- 39 and 20 — 29 age tourists are-highly visiting the Kovil, local tourists are higher the foreign tourists, graduates have visited the destination than theirs and the destination is popular among educated people, full time employees have attracted than the others, visitors received the information about the destination was a medium like social media and other( factors have been discussed in conclusion in detail
