Abstract:
Beach tourism is one of the most popular areas for outdoor recreation activities. It has grown significantly and generates numerous environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts. Nilaveli is one of the long sandy beaches in Eastern Coasts. However, the “Sustainability” is one of the key concepts growing all over the world. However, various stakeholders have taken number of initiatives to enhance the quality of visitor experience in the destinations. Therefore this contemporary study was to determine the existing sustainable tourism practices in Nilaveli Beach area, to analyse the tourist satisfaction on such practices and to develop a sustainable tourism model for beach tourism. For this study, the primary data was collected through structured interview from 15 sample units to identify the existing sustainable tourism practices and structured questionnaire from 200 inbound tourists in Nilaveli Beach to identify the visitors’ satisfaction. Tourist’s satisfaction level was identified in terms of environmentally, socio-culturally and economically sustainable tourism practices. Thematic analysis and Descriptive statistical analysis was used to achieve the research objectives. Study finds majority of the visitors are satisfied on socio-culturally and economically sustainable tourism practices. Most of the visitors satisfied on economically sustainable tourism practices. Consequently the study shows that environmentally sustainable tourism practices are not sufficiently available and it should be further improved in Nilaveli Beach specially it’s good to concern marine environment and the beach cleanliness. Sign boards should be replace with the marine environment conscious information, diving instructors and boat operators should take care about corals and marine environment.
