Identification of Evaluating Criteria for Sustainable Visitor Management of National Parks in Sri Lanka

Abstract

With the booming of Tourism industry,eco-tourism has been popularized and improved in the world. The places which are practicing eco-tourism attract increasing number of visitors day by day by exceeding their carrying capacity. Therefore, the environment of most of national parks in Sri Lanka adversely affected due to over visitation by local and foreign visitors. Adaptation of mechanism on sustainable visitor management for the national parks in other countries has been addressed this problem. Yet, there is no proper way to manage visitors for National parks in Sri Lanka and most are highly over visited. Sustainable visitor management is dependent on related set of criteria which are varying from country to country. In the Sri Lankan context, suitable criteria for sustainable visitor management are not yet identified. This study is supposed to fill this gap by identifying suitable criteria for sustainable visitor management in national parks in Sri Lanka. Sixty nine criteria were identified through literature review under category of fifteen factors and four attributes such as physical\ environment, tourism demand management and operational capacity management. Sixty two criteria were prioritized based on how frequently thy are used in various literatures and thy were ranked. Multivariate technique was applied to prioritize the above sixty two criteria based on compatibility and usability between each criterion and relevant indicator. The sixty two criteria were short listed up to twenty four criteria considering criteria value more than 1516. These twenty four were applied to evaluate the current visitor management of Yala National Park as it Is the highest over visited national park in Sri Lanka. Evaluation was done considering the perception of the expertise in tourism industry of Sri Lanka. Results indicate that Yala national park has moderate level of sustainable visitor management. And also there an mon criteria have to be taken in to account in order to reduce over visitation of Yala national park while managing its environment in a sustainable manner.