The Story of Pre-Historic and Proto-Historic Hominids of Sri Lanka: An Underexploited Resource for Inbound Tourism Promotions

Abstract

Heritage has always been one of the major products of Sri Lanka tourism since its initial stage. In addition to the intangible heritage attractions, the industry is inclined to promote the monuments and sites which majorly belong to the historic period. In this process, one of the country’s finest cultural assets has been overlooked by the tourism practitioners. This resource is nothing but the abundant pre and pro-historic sites scattered around different parts of the island. Hence, this research was carried out to fill this gap with the objectives of understanding the potentials of pre and proto-historic sites to be developed as tourism sites, recognizing the possible barriers and consequences of doing that, and seeking means of benefitting archeological sites and tourism industry mutually. The sample of the study which was obtained via purposive sampling technique included twenty-nine members representing nine archaeologists who engage in pre and pro-historic archaeological work and officers-in-charge of such sites, two representatives from SLTDA and SLTPB, representatives from six leading destination management companies, five tour guides and seven tourists who are interested in pre and proto history. Researchers adopted the exploratory qualitative method as the study aimed at unfolding something almost unexplored. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to extract primary data. Secondary data were collected from reliable publications. Content analysis was carried out with the assistance of NVivo software. The findings of this study indicate that there is a visible gap in an essential holistic approach between archaeologists, tourism authorities, DMCs, and tour guides. There is a substantial special interest tourist group traveling the world to explore pre-history and proto-history who could be drawn to Sri Lanka if the country can package these sites well. It was also found that archaeological sites and tourism could be mutually benefited as the sites get fame and protection when developed as tourism sites while the tourism industry can reach out to a profitable special interest traveler group. The archaeologists who have contributed to the excavation over the course of time could be appreciated too.