Abstract:
Religion plays a major role in almost all the aspects of human life. The idea of the religious travel almost prevailed from ancient time. Today, the religious tourism has been developed into a much larger and more segmented market. Sri Lanka is country which has a great potential for religious tourism with its cultural heritages. Anuradhapura is one of the ancient capitals of Sri Lanka, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its heritage and cultural significance. China is an emerging tourism market in Sri Lanka. Further, China is a multi-religious country where Buddhism takes a significant place. Hence, Religious tourism is one of the niche market in the tourism that can be best developed and promoted in the Sri Lanka especially for Chinese tourists, that has not yet reaped the benefits from the full potential. Since, destination attributes are critical in any form of tourism to create a successful tourism destination, the main purpose of this study to identify the impact of the destination attributes to develop the religious tourism in Anuradhapura from the perspective of Chinese tourists. A conceptual framework has been developed based on the 6A's in tourism. The study mainly depends on the primary data that has been collected by the author. The convenience sampling method was used to collect the data from the 100 Chinese tourists who visited Anuradhapura. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and the multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that attractions, amenities, activities and the ancillary services are highly impact on the religious tourism development in Anuradhapura from the perspective of Chinese tourists. In order to develop the religious tourism in Anuradhapura, 6A's concept can be considered with proper strategic framework based on the behavior patterns of different nationalities.
