Enhancing living and economic sustainability through community based tourism activities in Mahakanadarawa, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This research explores the potentials and possibilities to promote HCA in the Mahakanadarawa area focusing the factors such as; capacity of the communities, natural and manmade resources, institutions, merits/demerits of the destination sites in the district, administrative and policy environment, and infrastructure facilities etc. Mahakanadarawa area was selected using a purposive sampling method in accordance with a requirement of tourism action plan of North Central Province Council (NCPC). Data were collected using observations and in-depth face-to-face interviews. The results indicated that, the formulation of strategic plans, prudent policy initiatives, and entrepreneurial community awareness programs would be extremely helpful to address the possible challenges and to exploit the warranted potentials of tourism within the area in a sustainable manner. Further, the findings of this research would benefit to increase the rural economy by promoting community-based activities, while providing useful evidence for present and future policy makers to introduce a new model in the context of community based sustainability. Further a gap analysis would be recommended for identifying the impact of all socio-cultural factors to implement HCA successfully and future research should validate the findings of the present study focusing the other tourism projects and destination in the country.