Community Perception of Ecotourism in Kanneliya Rainforest Area

Abstract

Ecotourism is “Responsible travel to natural areas that conserve the environment, sustain the wellbeing of the local people and involves the interpretation and education”. It is a well constituted and remunerative concept for numerous regional development strategies. In Sri Lankan context it is very famous among tourists and tourism business as a result of rich ecosystems throughout the country. Although eco-tourism popular within the context, that have been argued a lot from the perspectives by communities, residents and tourist. The relationship among perception of eco-tourism, interpretation needs and satisfaction from the perspective of visitors and hosts are remained unclear. Accordingly, the current study aimed at eco-tourism visitors and host community of the Kanneliya rainforest area to investigative their eco-tourism perception, expectation and barriers to the developing ecotourism in the area. Qualitative methodology and inductive research approach to investigate the local community perception of ecotourism practices in Kanneliya Rainforest Area. Because they are highly subjective in nature within an interpretative paradigm. Hence, semi structured interviewing is deemed as a relevant research technique for data collection. Except those methods secondary data are also use such as publications done by local and international researchers regarding ecotourism, ecotourism perception and the related topics. By using above methods find there is great potential to develop ecotourism the main objective of this study is identifying the perception and expectations of local communities on ecotourism in Kanneliya rainforest area and recognize possible solutions to resolve the challenges and to maximize the existing opportunities of ecotourism development in the area.