Beach Tourism and its Positive Environmental Impacts (Related to Unawatuna coastal area)

Abstract

Tourism is the main foreign exchange earning industry in Sri Lanka in present. Beach tourism is one of the main environmental tourism product, since tourism started as an industry in Sri Lanka. Still beach tourism is the main tourism product in Sri Lankan tourism industry. The main objective of this research was to identify the positive environmental impacts of beach tourism. Unawatuna selected as a study area for the research, because this area was famous among Europeans in colonial period and it is named as one of the best beaches in the world through international surveys. Unawatuna is highly engaged with tourism in past as well as present. Therefore many environmental impacts can be seen in this area. Field observations and interviews used as data collecting methods and analyzed those qualitative data. Environmental preservation projects such as turtle conservation, coastal area conservation, water state management projects etc, improving the quality of the beach, increase awareness and conservation of historical and archaeological valuable site of coastal area are the positive environmental impacts can be seen in Unawatuna. Good combination of private and public sector, creating awareness of tourists and community people, using sustainable tourism development such as methods can be used as recommendations for improve positive environmental impacts of study area.