The Landscape and the tourist attraction : a study with reference to Nuwara-Eliya, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This research investigates the link between landscape and tourist attraction in Sri Lankan context. Tourism is the third largest foreign exchange earner of the country and the landscape is the main tourist attraction. But there is no proper identification on the significant factors which attract tourists to those landscapes. A well adopted tourism landscapeof Nuwara-Eliya city was selected as the case study.Three most attractive locations t Nuwara-Eliya;Lake Gregory premises, Moon Plains and Mackwood- The literature review identified six“landscape aspects” and nine “landscape components”which attract tourists to landscapes. Those aspects were “experiential”, “ideological”, “imaginary”, “out of ordinary”, “unspoilt”, and “scenic” and the components were “flora & fauna”, “settlements”, “enclosure”, “memories”, “land use”, “sound”, “sight”, “land form” and “air/climate”. Thus, the study investigates which landscape aspect attracts the tourists in to a landscape and which landscape component becomes most significant and why it becomes that much significant for visitors.Mixed method of qualitative and quantitative surveys with in-situ observations, questionnaire based interviews and photographic analysis were used for data collection with thirty randomly selected tourists as the sample. This study reveals that landscape aspect which attract tourists differ with most significant landscape component of the space. One landscape component could play different roles in different landscapes. Tourist attraction to a landscape is proportional to the endurance of most significant landscape component. Further, it was found that the visual perception is the ultimate satisfaction of tourists. The outcome of the study could be used as a design tool in the landscape architectural design developments to sustain the tourism landscapes.