Abstract:
With the booming 0/ Tourism industry.eco-tourism has beenpopularized and improved in the world. The places
which are practicing ceo-tourism attract increasing number 0/ visitors d'!)' by d'!)' by exceeding their carrying
capacity. Therefore, the environment 0/ most 0/ national parks in Sri Lanka adverselY affected due to over
visitation by local and foreign visitors. Adaptation 0/ mechanism on sustainable visitor management for the
national parks in other countries has been addressed this problem. Yet, there is noproper w'!)' to manage visitors
for 1 ational parks in Sri Lanka and most are highlY over visited. Sustainable visitor management is dependent
on related set 0/ criteria lvhich are varyingfrom country to country. In the Sri Lankan context, suitable criteriafor
sustainable visitor management are notyet identified. This sturIJ is supposed tofifl this gap by identifjing suitable
criteriafor sustainable visitor management in national parks in Sri Lanka. Sixty nine criteria were identified
through literature reviewunder category0/fifteen factors andfour attributes such aspbysica4 environment, tourism
demand management and operational capacity management. Sixty two criteria were prioritized based on how
frequentlY tbey are used in various literatures and thry were ranked. Multivariate technique was applied to
prioritize the above sixty two criteria based on compatibility and usability between each criterion and relevant
indicator. The sixty two criteria were short listed up to twenty four criteria consideringcriteria value more than
1516. These twentyfour were applied to evaluate the current visitor management of Yala National Park as it is
the highest over visited national park in Sri Lanka. Evaluation was done considering the perception 0/ the
expertise in tourism industry 0/ Sri Lanka. Results indicate that Yala national park has moderate level 0/
sustainable visitor management. And also there are more criteria have to be taken in to account in order to reduce
over visitation of Yala nationalpark while managing its environment in a sustainable manner.
