Abstract:
Religion has been and continues to be a major motivation for travel. Many religions make the visitation of sacred sites, shrines, temples and churches to search about personal meaning and fulfilment in a postmodern capitalist world. As a result, of religious travels is the form that is exclusively or strongly motivated for religious reasons. Demand for the satisfaction of religious travel and tourism services increased and catering to such requirements became a popular way of income generation. The tendency towards questing religious background affects number of industries in the world including tourism industry. Many countries which are possessed with cultural, natural and religious resources but which lack the required infrastructure to promote fun based tourism concepts eager in turning to religious tourism destinations and religious tourism is becoming an easy market to promote. This statement expressed the capability of in Sri Lanka as religious tourism destination. In this research study researcher recognized the potential for religious tourism in Sri Lanka by investigating the religious tourists' expectations and Behaviour,the satisfaction level of religious tourist with current guided tour packages, and the factors influencing on promoting Sri Lanka as religious tourist destination with guided tour packages on operators point of view. Sixty of religious tourists and three tour operators have been investigated to achieve the objectives. As this is a new area of research in Sri Lankan context the visitor profile of religious tourist as well has been recognized. The numerous potentials have been identified which will be in capable of promoting Religious tourism in Sri Lanka.
