Evaluation of sustainability of a tourism destination : case of Pigeon Island in Trincomalee

Abstract

Tourism industry is a fast-growing industry in the world and in Sri Lanka. To meet the growing demand, a large number of destinations are being exposed and developed rapidly without proper planning and management harming the natural environment and excluding local communities and local content – the very foundation and uniqueness of the Sri Lankan travel experience. Hikkaduwa tourism destination, where 75 % of live corals have been destroyed due to overcrowded tourists visits and unplanned activities and also Pigeon Island Marine National Park (PIMNP) at Trincomalee which indicate same threats to the live corals are major examples of damages to environment and host communities due to disregard of sustainability aspects in planning and management of tourism activities in Sri Lanka. Although Sustainable tourism is a huge concern, its practical applicability has limitations due to lack of a method to evaluate the implications of sustainable principles. This study attempts to develop a framework of indicators to evaluate sustainability in a tourism destination based on three pillars of sustainable tourism; economic, environment and socio-cultural which were selected as the mandates of the framework. Components of three base pillars in terms of tourism presented by WTO in 2004 were selected as the expressions of each mandate. The indicators of each expression were initially developed based on existing indicators of sustainable tourism and further narrowed down as appropriate for Sri Lankan context. Then the proposed framework was applied to PIMNP at Trincomalee. The data was collected through past records, field surveys, perception surveys, analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods and presented using a descriptive method. After quantifying all indicators based on a scaling method and weighted sum method was used to derive overall and thematic sustainability levels. The results indicated; overall sustainability level of PIMNP as 42% composing of 47% of economic, 35% of environmental and 44% of socio-cultural thematic sustainability levels. PIMNP has relatively high economic sustainability and lower environment sustainability. Since PIMNP is a tourist attraction based on natural asset, the environment sustainability plays a major role in making the overall venture a sustainable tourism venture.