Abstract:
Sri Lanka has been a tourist destination for centuries because of its strategic location and uniqueness.
Cultural and heritage scenarios are considered as one of the important pull factors for the future
development of the tourism industry in Sri Lanka. This has the potential to establish well-stabilize
heritage tourism in the country. Being a place of six world cultural heritages, the country itself possesses
the foundation to promote heritage tourism. This study focused on the optimization of inputs in order
to establish sustainable heritage tourism for Kandy Heritage Site (KHS). The purpose of foreign arrivals
to the country was studied for a six-year period along with the number of tourist who visits cultural
heritage sites to distinguish the perception on KHS. The study was based on secondary data obtained
from a comprehensive literature survey and annual tourist statistics of the period from 2010 to 2016.
And also, cultural tourist typology and heritage assets in the area were identified through direct
observations and metric maps. SWOT analysis was used to find out the strengths and weaknesses of
existing situation of heritage tourism in KHS. MS Excel used for data analysis. It was noticed that the
perception of cultural interest has reduced significantly and only the year 2013 can be identified as a
year which indicates a higher number of arrivals, i.e., about 65,495 where most of foreign
visitors were from South Asia and Western Europe. This has reduced up to 390 in 2016. Other heritage
sites have more potential to establish as stable heritage tourism sites than the KHS. Although those who
arrived for various purposes to the island stay in Kandy area, their primary purpose was far from
heritage tourism. The weakness identified through the SWOT analysis in KHS also influenced this
rapid decline of visitation. Though there are various cultural assets, less popularity has influenced this
drawback. However, the study has identified the possibility to optimize inputs of heritage tourism.
Introducing new cultural experiences such as cultural theme parks, cultural villages are the strategies to
increase heritage tourism in KHS. Therefore, adopting a sustainable concept, heritage tourism in the
island can be established in a new approach paying attention to the optimization of potential inputs of
the heritage tourism in Kandy.
