Historically Sri Lanka has always been a tourist destination for centuries because of its strategic location and uniqueness. Although Sri Lankan tourism sector has been growing since 1967, International tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka have experienced notable fluctuations during the nearly three decades of civil war, particularly between 1983 and 2009. Sri Lankan tourism has managed to recover quickly since the end of the war in 2009. After recognising the role of post-war tourism, the Sri Lankan government has launched the Tourism Development Strategies for the period 2011-2016. Firstly, The paper carried out systematic statistical analysis for Sri Lankan tourism focussing in particular on the civil war and associated political violence. Secondly, the paper empirically explored whether the targets set in the TDS by the Sri Lankan government are achievable or realistic by using a simple econometric model. Furthermore, post-war tourism development and the tourism boom are being evaluated within the context of the current political and economic situation. The empirical results of the first study demonstrating that the Sri Lankan tourism industry is very sensitive to political violence, exchange rate changes, and seasonal variations. The analysis suggests that significant increases in political violence lowered tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka and created a substantial amount of volatility in tourism demand. The results of the second study indicate that the Sri Lankan tourism industry was in a favorable position to achieve the targets until 2014 but missing the targets in 2015 and it is a challenge to achieve of 2.5 million tourism arrivals by 2016. A number of policy inferences can be drawn from this study. Given the limited resources available to the Sri Lankan government and the competing claims on these resources, development of strategies for and active promotion of public-private partnerships aimed at creating new tourism related infrastructure (hotel resorts, cruise line facilities, road transport upgrades, etc.) are recommended. There is should be a consideration for promoting the country as a price competitive and safe tourism destination. Finally, the country has to maintain political stability and work towards reconciliation process with improved governance and maintaining rules of law in order for the development strategy to be fully realized.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Risks of Political Violence and Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka
3. Empirical Model for the Volatility of Tourism Demand in Sri Lanka
3.1 Methodology
3.2 Model Specification
3.3 Results
4. Post-war Tourism Demand and Forecasting in Sri Lanka
4.1 Empirical Model for Tourism Demand
4.2 Evaluation of the Targets
5. Issues in tourism Sector in Sri Lanka
6. Conclusion
Research Objectives and Core Themes
This paper examines the impact of political violence and the post-war recovery on the Sri Lankan tourism industry. The primary research objective is to analyze the volatility of international tourist arrivals during the civil war and to evaluate the feasibility of government-set tourism growth targets for the post-war period using econometric modeling.
- Analysis of tourism volatility in relation to political violence and civil war.
- Evaluation of post-war tourism demand and future forecasting.
- Assessment of the realism and feasibility of government Tourism Development Strategy (TDS) targets.
- Examination of structural challenges including accommodation capacity, human resources, and infrastructure gaps.
- Development of strategic policy recommendations for sustainable tourism growth.
Excerpt from the Book
1. Introduction
Historically Sri Lanka has always been a tourist destination for centuries because of its strategic location and uniqueness. Although there have been ups and down in the number of tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka during the post-independence period, Sri Lanka satisfies the criteria required to be considered as one of the ‘tourism countries’ (TC) (Brau, Di Liberto, & Pigliaru, 2011). Although the Sri Lankan tourism sector has been growing since 1967, International tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka have experienced notable fluctuations during the nearly three decades of civil war, particularly between 1983 and 2009 (Fernando, 2017). Following the end of nearly three decades separatist civil war in Sri Lanka in May 2009, Sri Lanka has witnessed an unprecedented post-war tourism boom beyond its expectation (Smith, Bandara, Liyanaarachchi, & Fernando, 2014). The number of international tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka has sharply increased breaking all previous historical annual and monthly tourist arrivals records. The post-war peace time has given Sri Lankans and the Sri Lankan tourism sector new hopes and optimism (Fernando, 2016).
This study carried out systematic statistical analysis for Sri Lankan tourism focussing in particular on the civil war and associated political violence which significantly affected the Sri Lankan tourism industry for the three decades prior to 2009. Furthermore, post-war tourism development and the tourism boom are being evaluated within the context of the current political and economic situation. For this purpose, two econometric models are developed in order to evaluate the sensitivity of the Sri Lankan tourism to political violence and its potential growth during the post-war period. Furthermore, using the results of the tourism demand model the post war tourism targets are evaluated. The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section two discusses risk in the tourism industry in the case of political violence and civil war. Section three develops an empirical model for investigating volatility of tourism demand in Sri Lanka. Section four identifies empirically trends and fluctuations in Sri Lankan tourism demand in between the various episodes of war and peace using monthly tourism data for last four decades. Further, it investigates post-war tourism targets and feasibilities in achieving those targets in Section five. Section six concludes the paper.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: Outlines the historical context of Sri Lankan tourism, the impact of civil war, and the subsequent post-war boom, while defining the paper's focus on econometric analysis.
2. Risks of Political Violence and Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka: Explores the well-documented sensitivity of international tourists to security issues and the negative impact of political instability on tourism growth.
3. Empirical Model for the Volatility of Tourism Demand in Sri Lanka: Details the methodology and results of applying a GARCH model to analyze the volatility and conditional variance in tourist arrival data from 1967 to 2012.
4. Post-war Tourism Demand and Forecasting in Sri Lanka: Uses a regression model to forecast future demand and critically evaluates whether the government’s Tourism Development Strategy (TDS) targets are achievable.
5. Issues in tourism Sector in Sri Lanka: Discusses key impediments to sustainable growth, including infrastructure limitations, human resource gaps, accommodation capacity, and pricing issues.
6. Conclusion: Summarizes the study’s findings regarding the sensitivity of the sector to political violence and emphasizes the need for stability and strategic investment to meet future targets.
Keywords
Sri Lanka, Tourism, Civil War, Post-war Development, Political Violence, Tourist Arrivals, Volatility, Econometric Model, GARCH, Tourism Development Strategy, Infrastructure, Accommodation Capacity, Human Resources, Tourism Forecasting, Economic Growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the central focus of this research paper?
The paper focuses on the dynamics of the Sri Lankan tourism industry, specifically analyzing how political violence and the long-term civil war affected tourist arrival patterns and volatility, and evaluating the feasibility of post-war development targets.
What are the primary thematic areas covered in the analysis?
The core themes include the impact of conflict on tourism demand, the application of econometric models (such as GARCH) to tourism data, the evaluation of government tourism strategy targets, and structural sector challenges like accommodation and infrastructure.
What is the main research question or objective of the study?
The primary objective is to empirically assess the impact of political violence on tourism volatility and to determine whether the tourism arrival targets set by the Sri Lankan government for the 2011-2016 period are realistic given historical and current market data.
Which scientific methods are utilized in this work?
The author employs systematic statistical and econometric analysis, utilizing GARCH (Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity) models to analyze volatility and OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) regression models to forecast tourism demand.
What topics are explored in the main body of the paper?
The main body treats historical trends in tourist arrivals, the volatility induced by civil war episodes, the sensitivity of the sector to price indices and exchange rates, and a detailed assessment of supply-side constraints such as hotel room capacity and workforce training.
Which keywords best characterize this research?
Key terms include Sri Lanka, tourism volatility, post-war development, GARCH modeling, and Tourism Development Strategy.
How did the war affect the consistency of tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka?
The study finds that tourist arrivals were extremely sensitive to political violence, with major war-related incidents creating substantial volatility and often causing significant declines in monthly arrivals compared to periods of peace.
Are the government’s tourism targets for 2016 considered achievable by the author?
The author suggests that while targets were statistically feasible until 2014, the goal of 2.5 million arrivals by 2016 is problematic due to the lack of political stability and the failure to address structural bottlenecks in the industry.
What role does the exchange rate play in Sri Lankan tourism?
The research demonstrates a positive relationship between the depreciation of the Sri Lankan rupee against the US dollar and tourist arrivals, suggesting that currency depreciation improves the country's price competitiveness as a tourist destination.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Dr. Sriyantha Fernando (Autor:in), 2016, Demand, volatility and post-war tourism in Sri Lanka, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/370703
