Managing the tourism-led development strategy in post-war Sri Lanka

Abstract

The Sri Lankan tourism industry has been booming since the end of war in 2009. Considering the key role that tourism can play in post-war economic development, the Sri Lankan government launched a Tourism Development Strategy (TDS). This study has evaluated the feasibility of achieving the targets of the TDS by building a simple tourism demand model and by undertaking a qualitative comparative assessment with a selected tourism booms in a number of war-affected countries. The findings suggest that the TDS targets are achievable provided the country manages to expand supply of tourism related infrastructure (hard as well as soft) in a price competitive manner.