ANALYSIS OF THE POTENTIALS FOR PROMOTING SRI LANKA AS A WELLNESS TOURISM DESTINATION

Abstract

The last few years have seen a growing realization of health and wellness as more travelers seek to find the balance between the physical, mental and emotional well-being of everyday life while incorporating the elements of health, prevention, self- actualization, experiences and attitudes. Hence, the wellness desire is now recognizing as one of the splendid motives to travel and growing concept in many countries. Therefore, it has been researched from diverse perspectives in worldwide and identified wellness tourism as a growing tourism market as well as an ideal niche market for countries seeking tourism opportunities for economic growth. Sri Lanka is a country which has blessed with its unique Ayurveda treatments, yoga traditions, distinctive cuisine, hospitable community, abundant flora and fauna, heritage and culture with existential authenticity which need to explore the capability of Sri Lanka as a wellness tourism destination. In this research, researcher recognized the potential for promoting Sri Lanka as a wellness tourism destination by investigating the wellness tourists’ expectations and destination capability as the success of any tourist destination fundamentally rely upon how well they have identified the expectations of tourists’ and how conscientiously tourists’ expectations are met by the destination through maximum utilization of its capabilities. This study was based on the results derived through the data collection done via interviews from fifty wellness tourists and fifteen operators representing demand and supply side respectively in order to achieve research objectives. Collected data were analyzed by developing transcripts to summarize data for each individual interview and finalize the gathered data. Findings of this research will contribute to authorized bodies in the industry for policy making, strategy development as well as this research will pave paths to future research areas.