International Postgraduate Research Conference (IPRC)
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/155
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item The Future of Travel Agencies in Sri Lanka(19th Conference on Postgraduate Research, International Postgraduate Research Conference 2018, Faculty of Graduate Studies,University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Yohani, T.A Travel Agency is an intermediary company between the producers of products and services of travel and tourism industry. More specifically, they sell organized travel packages and provide the guests with all necessary information that are related to tourism destinations, accommodations, tourist attractions, accessibilities, amenities and transport services which facilitate greatly consumers travel planning as travel intermediaries. There are some researches studies done about the Travel agencies related to the travel and tourism industry. However, there are no proper studies done to reveal the future of travel agency. Especially there are no researches done about the future of travel agencies in Sri Lanka. Hence, the problem of study: how will the role of travel agents change in the future. This study undertaken to identify the significant role of travel agencies in Sri Lanka and The final fact is, nowadays consumers are even better experts in many incidents than the intermediaries like travel agencies. The aim of the study is to examine and analyze the drivers for change in the travel agents and tourism professionals’ point of view and at identifying development areas that will help to travel agents to be prepared for the future challenges. Employees and consumers of a travel agency and tourism professionals were the sample of the study and sampling method was stratified sampling. The responses were selected from a special leading, registered travel agency in Colombo, Sri Lanka. There were 02 questionnaires with 30 questions and 14 interview questions from different variables asked from the sample and primary data were analyzed by using Microsoft office Excel sheets. In this study five key variables were identified to help to find employees and customers view about role of a travel agency and to investigate how it will effect for the future of travel agencies in Sri Lanka. According to the research findings, factors like role and functions, level of customer satisfaction, issues, future challenges and development areas. The study has given an insight into the understanding about development areas that will help to be prepared for the future. However, study has identified that their challenges of travel agencies in Sri Lanka and researcher mentioned that the positive view about the new trends. Finally, study has mentioned some recommendations to increase the level of travel and tourism business in Sri LankaItem Rural Tourism and Rural Household Economic Development in Sri Lanka(19th Conference on Postgraduate Research, International Postgraduate Research Conference 2018, Faculty of Graduate Studies,University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Perera, I.G.A.N.Nowadays Tourism plays a leading role in economic development process, as one of the most human sensible industries in the global market. Rural tourism is one of the crucial determinants which mostly deal with rural life patterns to identify significance of tourism industry on economic development. The reliability and correlation of the relationship between contribution of rural tourism activities and rural household economic development was tested by this study to remark the significance of contribution of rural tourism on rural household economic development in Sri Lanka. The research area was selected as the Hiriwadunna grama niladhari division in the Anuradhapura district among a few numbers of villages which conduct rural tourism activities in a regular basis as one of their main livelihood. Basically the study used both primary and secondary data and the research sample included both, villagers from Hiriwadunna grama niladhari division and tourists including both local and foreign who had come to visit Hiriwadunna village within a given period of time. The sample was selected using simple random sampling and strategic sampling methods. The data was collected through structured interviews using two separate questionnaires for villagers and tourists. Collected data was organized using the software as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and analyzed using correlation co-efficient, reliability tests and the regression analysis. The analysis addressed five research questions as contribution of rural tourism activities as one of their important livelihood (income source), effects of demand for rural tourism activities on households’ income, impact of intermediaries on income changes of rural households, overall contribution of rural tourism activities to develop rural household economy and how to improve and to make contribution of rural tourism more efficient as an economic development strategy in rural areas of Sri Lanka. Five hypotheses constructed and tested to identify significance of relationship between two variables in each research question. Though the derived results revealed that rural tourism significantly influenced on economic development of rural households in Sri Lanka, impact of intermediaries, less intervention of the government, lack of formal organizations or a national policy framework have affected negatively on contribution of rural tourism activities on rural household economic development in Sri Lanka. Hence the study suggests that elimination of these drawbacks with a proper guidance of both public and private sectors will be able to enhance the significance of rural tourism as an efficient strategy of developing rural household economy in Sri LankaItem Role of Tea in Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka(Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Weerasingha, I.Geographical and climatic conditions of Sri Lanka have formed an appropriate possibility for tea cultivation including the areas in Central Province, Southern Province and Western Province. Historical evidences proved that tea tree has a long history dates back to the late 19th Century. Tea trails have been included in most of the tour packages offered by the travel agencies in their tour itineraries. Currently tea plantations, tea culture and tea production have been interacted by the tourism industry in the country. This study is based on the potential in tea concept for promoting tourism industry in all aspects of hospitality, nature tourism, culture tourism, community tourism, and tourism promotions. The research problem was to identify how the tea plant is being attracted by the tourists for their travel and hospitality related satisfaction. Research was conducted by accessing both primary and secondary data collective methods where 20 travel agencies were observed, 7 tea states were observed and 20 tourists were interviewed during the research. Tea products and plantations have been identified as primitive attraction by travel agencies and tour operators for promoting both nature and cultural tourism. Brochures and websites of the travel agencies have been designed with tea culture while the hospitality industry (accommodation units) offers another kind of warm welcome with tea service for their guests such as High Tea. At the tea factories organize specific tea trails where the visitors are given the opportunity to experience from planting tea crops, tea plucking and production procedure. Tea is one of the international symbolic icons in promoting Sri Lanka so that tourism industry is being attributed immense advantage from tea culture. Moreover new technological aspects can be attributed in the tourism industry for promoting tea based tourism experience.Item Home Stay Concept in Sri Lanka and its Impacts (With special reference to Padavigampola Home Stay Village)(Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Rathnayake, M.V.R.M.S.Home Stay is one type of accommodation sectors in tourism industry. It allows to tourists stay with local families in the destination and become familiar with local style. Padavigampola Village is situated in Rambukkana, Kegalle district, Sabaragamuwa Province. It is the first home stay village in Sri Lanka. The objectives of this research were to identify both positive and negative effects of the home stay project and giving recommendations to promote home stay concept furthermore. Field observations, interviews, questionnaires used as data collecting methods and those collected data were analyzed analytically because both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered during the study. Most of villagers had a good attitude about this project because of the positive benefits. Creating job opportunities, community development, generating income for villagers, improve quality of life and ensure environmental sustainability are some positive benefits. Comparing the outcome of home stay concept, benefits are abundant rather than the negative impacts. Establishing information centre, introducing new activities and new concepts for visitors, involving private sector, encouraging host community, regular monitoring and feedbacks, conducting awareness programs are some recommendations for improving positive effects and minimizing negative impacts for promoting Home Stay concept.Item Effect of tourism on biodiversity in the coastal environment; A study of Bentota area in the south–western coastline in Sri Lanka(Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Joseph, F.N.Costal environment is an amenity which has high scenic value and gives great enjoyment and pleasure for mankind. As a result most of the tourists have selected coastal areas as their desirable holiday destinations. However, growth of coastal tourism has created many environment problems at the present. Destruction of biodiversity is one of the major problem amongst them. Persistence of biodiversity is very important for maintaining ecological balance of coastal environment. Similarly these environment provide unique ecological services such as sediment storage and transport, water filtration, providing habitats for coastal species and functional links between terrestrial and marine environments. The objective of this research was to find out effects of tourism on biodiversity in the coastal environments. South-western coastline between Bentota and Kosgoda river outfalls was purposively selected as the study area. Stratified random sampling method was applied for the collecting primary data in this research. The sample consists of three groups as adjoining households, workers in the tourist hotels and tourist guides. In addition field observation was made to gather further information. Secondary data were collected from publish and unpublished sources and websites. Raw data was analyzed by using statistical techniques available in Microsoft Excel Software. It was reveals that the local people collect turtle eggs and sell them as income source, threatening the extinction of this endangered turtles. The removal of sea grass and other plants to make open beaches for recreations was seen as another destructive action. It accelerates coastal erosion and loss of the habitat for coastal species. Some tourist hotels empty their sewage and other waste directly into sea water. The study found, some tourism related activities has threatened the coastal species. Also these activities are caused to sensitive coastal environment destruction. Raising awareness about value of coastal environment among the local population, especially involve owners and other responsible persons of the hotels and visitors, strengthening control measures and enforcement of environmental regulation and standards would helped to protect these coastal habitat for sustainable tourism development.