Legal Implications for Tourism Impacts on Physical Cultural Heritage in Mihintale

Abstract

Sri Lanka is one of the best and popular heritage tourism destinations in the world. Many of the heritage tourists admire the cultural and heritage values at destinations. However, the adverse effects of tourism on cultural heritage sites are commonly noted. Therefore, a systematic investigation is much needed to discover the repercussions of heritage tourism and the associated laws and regulations to safeguard the cultural heritage properties in Sri Lanka. The main aim of this study was to determine the detrimental effects of tourism on cultural heritage and to assess the state of regulations aimed at protecting cultural heritage properties. By adopting a qualitative research approach, this study focuses on implementing laws governing the conservation of tangible cultural heritage resources in Mihintale, one of Sri Lanka's most important heritage sites. Face-to-face interviews with government officers at the Mihintale archaeological site and the police station, participant observations, images taken by the researcher, and examining the rules and regulations in Acts were among the sources of data used in this research. Thematic, content, picture, and descriptive analysis methodologies were used to analyze the data manually. According to the findings, it was discovered that the applied Acts were effective in safeguarding heritage properties, but the operationalization of the laws of the topic had flaws. The findings provide a thorough understanding of the context legislation governing tourism's effects on cultural heritage sites. It is also worth noting that the conservation and preservation of significant cultural heritage resources are critical to promoting sustainable heritage tourism.