MANAGING TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY: UNDERSTANDING SRI LANKAN COMMUNITIES READINESS TO PARTICIPATE IN NATURE BASED TOURISM

Proper management practices could contribute towards the attainment of social and environmental sustainability. However, determining proper management practice require an understanding of the attitudes of those involved. This paper examines the Sri Lankan context of community tourism initiatives that is integrated with participatory natural resource management programmes. Focusing on participation readiness of the community in terms of their attitudes towards tourism development, their commitment, and the existing community capacity, the study employs a mixed method with predominantly qualitative approach to obtain data and analyze two communities of similar nature. It critically evaluates the efforts of community empowerment programmes delivered by the state institutions and non-governmental organizations in the selected areas. It also discusses of repercussions of generic issues in existing policy and legislation of the country that can have significant bearing on community empowerment efforts as well. The findings reveal that in the study context, the ‘community capacity’ and ‘community commitment’ factors are very subjective and can affect the success of community participation considerably despite the community’s positive attitudes towards tourism development. Thus, empowering local communities to become self-reliant in tourism, and helping them to raise incomes and improve their standards of living has become a key challenge in this context. The findings draw attention on the pressing need for understanding inherent weaknesses of rural communities and external factors affecting the success of these initiatives. The implication is the need for change in technicalities in the present approach of community tourism development – one that provide policies that recognize, and facilitate community’s participation in tourism development