Impact of Climate change on Tourism in Sri Lanka: An Investigation

Abstract

Tourism is the act and process of spending time away from home in pursuit of recreation, relaxation, and pleasure, while making use of the commercial provision of services. It is further identified as a product of modern social arrangements. On the other hand, climate change refers to a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. The objective of this paper is thus to investigate negatives of climate change on Sri Lankan tourism while pointing out how tourism itself becomes a culprit of unconventional climatic transformations. Therefore,the research problem that is intended to answer through this study is “How feasible it is to establish a climate friendly tourism in Sri Lanka?” This study was mainly conducted in three stages. In the initial stage of data collecting, primary methodology in focus is to delve in to several unhealthy climatic conditions especially in relation to Sri Lankan tourist industry and to gather facts such as their causes, their severity, their impact and etc. Next, some insight was put on to identify and analyze how tourism itself is responsible in causing such conditions. Thus, several ecofriendly methodologies that can be practically implemented were introduced in some depth while constructing a realistic supply chain that highly favors the environment. In the final concluding stage, obvious possibility of climate friendly tourism was seen on the basis of three important concepts: “Avoidance, Substitution and Offsetting”. These conclusions are purely based on a qualitative analysis where an attempt is taken to introduce techniques of optimization within tourist industry for a better economy.