Unveiling the Potentials and Challenges of Ella as a Tourist Destination
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11113/intrest.v19n2.420Keywords:
Destination management, Tourist destination, Ella Tourism Area, Strategic location, Tourism industryAbstract
Tourism significantly contributes to the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental development of countries worldwide, making it important to focus on the potentials and challenges for tourism. Ella, a captivating city in the Badulla District, is growing as a leading tourism destination in Sri Lanka, with different attractions like the Nine Arch Bridge, Little Adam’s Peak, Ravana Ella Falls and Cave, Ella Rock, and many more, offering tourists a wide range of activities to experience. The accelerating demand for tourism in Ella emphasizes the need to assess its potential more specifically, as well as the challenges that might hinder the realization of the potential for tourism development. Therefore, this study attempted to analyse the potential and challenges of Ella for a better understanding of potential developments. A descriptive research design was utilised based on the qualitative and quantitative data collected from a convenient sample of 138 residents and 150 tourists through a semi-structured questionnaire, along with the secondary data to assess the potentials and challenges. Results drawn indicate Ella’s massive potentials for tourism development. Among such potentials, its strategic location, higher government attention and support as a major tourist destination, positive attitudes and active engagement of the host community towards tourism, availability of infrastructure and other supportive facilities, diversity in attractions, possibility for promoting alternative types of tourism, and unexplored historical legacy of the area are some key factors. At the same time, it was found that several circumstances obstruct the realization of potential opportunities, such as inadequate transport facilities, inadequacies in destination management measures, poor promotional efforts, unacceptable business practices of locals, overcrowding, and the long distances between attractions. The study recommends implementing adequate destination management measures, improving the entire transportation system, and establishing a regulatory or monitoring mechanism to ensure fair business practices by locals.
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