Browsing by Author "Ranasinghe, D.M."

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    Challenges and Opportunities for Community Based Tourism Development in Kithulgala
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Ranasinghe, D.M.
    Tourism is one of the world's fastest-growing industries and is a major source of income for many countries similar to Sri Lanka. CBT aims to create a more sustainable tourism industry focusing on the receiving communities in terms of planning and maintaining tourism development. Kithulgala is one of the top tourist attractions which comprises with high level of biodiversity and adventure hotspot. Due to the hydro power plantation project, tourism will be drop down in future, especially white water rafting. In addition to white water rafting there are natural attractions and adventure activities available in Kithulgala. This study especially focuses on identifying challenges, opportunities and community perception towards the CBT development. The study is adapted the mixed methodology and the data is generated through questionnaire and interviews. The questionnaire consists with two set of surveys: one focusing on the hoteliers and boat operators another on tourists. The simple random sampling method was used to select hotels and boat operating companies and convenience sampling method with 50 hoteliers and 50 boat operators, 50 tourists and 10 community members were interview. Quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis with the support of SPSS 21.0 version and qualitative data analyzed by using thematic analysis. According to the results lack of community interest, hydro power plantation project, lack of governments involvement, lack of awareness and training, lack of marketing and promotion activities and lack of infrastructure identified as challenges and there are number of opportunities identified as increasing revisit intention ,improvements of desire to explore remote locations, introducing novel adventure based activities, focusing on positive recommendations of the visitors and providing facilities to different experience about local culture .Finally Some precious recommendations and suggestions as production diversification, enhance government involvement, develop marketing and promotional activities and adapt to sustainable practices. Key words: Community Based Tourism, community perception, Challenges, Opportunities
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    Challenges and Opportunities for Community Based Tourism Development in Kithulgala
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2020) Ranasinghe, D.M.; Damunupola, A.K.A.; Kumara, P.H.T.; Sammani, U.G.O.
    Tourism is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries and it is a major source of income for many countries. Community-Based Tourism (CBT) concept relates more specifically to tourism operations involving local communities, taking place on their lands and oriented on their cultural and natural resources and attractions. This study especially focused on identifying challenges, opportunities for CBT development in Kithulgala, and particularly intended to study the community perception towards CBT development in Kithulgala. This study adopted a mixed-methods approach and data were gathered through questionnaires and interviews. Two separate questionnaires were used gathered data from hoteliers, tour operators, and tourists. The convenience sampling method was used to collect data from 100 hoteliers, operators, and 50 tourists, and 10 local community members were interviewed. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive and exploratory factor analysis with the support of SPSS and qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis. According to the results, lack community interest, lack of government, lack of awareness and training, lack of marketing and promotional activities and lack of infrastructure identified were identified as challenges and there were several opportunities identified such as increasing revisit intention, improvements of desire to explore remote locations, introducing novel adventure-based activities, focusing on positive recommendations of the visitors and providing facilities to different experience about local culture. There should be some implications for the development of tourism in Kithulagla, product diversification, and quality enhancement, develop marketing and promotion through social media and company websites, and increase government involvement. . Keywords: Community based tourism, Challenges, Opportunities, Community perception