“The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is the most severe global crisis since WWII. COVID-19 restrictions have effectively stopped economies around the world and the global economy is expected to enter a recession in 2020. Global Tourism has been the worst affected of all major economic sectors. However, the magnitude of the downturn will depend on the length of the restrictions. The severity of the crisis is likely to leave a long term impact on the functioning of economies, supply chains and trade relations”.Source; Economic outlook conclusion; Euromonitor International

It is needless to mention that the COVID-19 Pandemic has created an unforeseen huge disaster by collapsing the already recovered Sri Lanka Tourism product after the Easter Sunday Terror attack on 21 April 2019. In the process of recovery, the tourism and hospitality industry in Sri Lanka will have to experience strong changes in their marketing and promotional plans in months ahead. When developing Tourism Resilience Plans (TRPs) or any other recovery plans Sri Lanka Tourism industry should anticipate drastic changes in the thinking pattern of international tourists centered on their safety and well-being. Therefore the industry will have to expect changes in the tourist behavior.

In developing Tourism Resilience/Recovery Plans (TRPs) National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) and tourism stakeholders should look possible alternatives to incorporate the above in to their strategic actions plans. The global tourism organizations such as UN-WTO, WTCC, PATA, UN-ESCAP also opened up discussions and interactions with tourism stake holders on which directions the future global tourism should move forward. On the face of COVID-19 Pandemic, a country like Sri Lanka has also an opportunity to use this pandemic disaster as a platform to redesign and redirect its tourism product.

This is where the concept of Ecotourism comes under searchlights.

The concept of Ecological Tourism or popularly known as Ecotourism is a ‘new dimension of the global tourism industry in which selected sites and locations and sometimes entire geographical zones are preserved for people to visit and appreciate them in their pristine natural beauty’ The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), the pioneering and the largest global ecotourism society defines it as “responsible travel to natural areas which conserves the culture, environment and improves the wellbeing of the local community”. By adhering to the principles, TIES promotes sustainable tourism and responsible travel around the globe. A walk through the rainforest is not eco-tourism unless that particular walk somehow benefits that environment and the community who live there. A rafting trip is only ‘eco-tourism’ if it raises awareness and funds to help protect the watershed. When interpreting Ecotourism it is very important in differentiating Ecotourism from Nature and Adventure Tourism. “Ecotourism is presently seen as one of the most lucrative niche markets in the tourism industry, as Ecotourists are higher spenders than ‘ordinary’ mass tourists. High spending, nature loving, responsible tourists are undoubtedly an attractive option for governments looking for ways of earning scarce foreign exchange through tourism”.

(Story of Ecotourism Sri Lanka; Palitha Gurusinghe-PP-72)

The main principles of Ecotourism are

1. Minimize negative environmental impact

2. Minimize impacts on the social-cultural environment

3. Include education and interpretation to assist in increasing visitors’ understanding and environmental and cultural awareness

4. Contribute to the conservation of the natural environment and include local participation in the decision-making process regarding all of the proposed programs and other activities affecting the community

5. Directly contribute to the well-being of local people through job creation, education and training

6. Priority to be given in operation of small tour groups and provide accommodations at locally owned ecofriendly properties Participate. It is very important to provide personalized service to the ecotourists

Aftermath of COVID 19, most countries in the world are revisiting their tourism products and focusing on sustainable and ecotourism as an alternative to mass tourism. As described above Ecotourism focuses on environmentally friendly, low impact small scale tourism.

In the years ahead and assessing the current situation, Sri Lanka cannot expect millions of tourists to visit Sri Lanka in big groups. Future, tourists, both from Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific Region would prefer to travel in small groups, may be 5-7 similar to that of FITs (Free Individual Travellers) they will take extra care on their health, safety and wellness while travelling and certainly would think of avoiding travelling in big coaches and visiting crowded tourism sites. When it comes to accommodation they would prefer to stay in locally owned small scale accommodations such as ecolodges, nature cabanas, home stays, smaller hotels etc. They would give preference to activities such as nature and wildlife, bird watching, spiritual tourism such as yoga, meditation, learning of Buddhism, Hinduism, Ayurveda, indigenous culture and their way of life, agro tourism etc. When it comes for food they would much prefer to have local cuisine and traditional organic foods. These tourists are belongs to the category of ‘Responsible Tourists’ or ‘Eco Tourists’ who are respecting the nature, culture, biodiversity and community benefits when visiting at their travel destinations.

A Profile of an Ecotourist

According to the data presented by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), the largest and pioneer global ecotourism organization, the socio demographic factors also contribute to the ecotourism market. Ecotourists are of all ages, from young back packers to the baby-boomers, such as the age group of 35-54 years. Out of these, 89% are college graduates, graduate students, professors, medical doctors, high profile business tycoons etc. About 70% ecotourists prefer trips lasting 8-14 days. Experienced ecotourists were willing to spend more than what general tourist spend. 90% of ecotourists were willing to spend US$ 1000-1500 per trip (ground costs only), in Sri Lanka Rupees 90,000 to 135,000.

Why Ecotourism is important for a country like Sri Lanka

It will be very important that ecotourism benefits the local population rather than taking them from a position where they are the users of the resources to a position where they become mere employees or indeed are dispossessed. As tourism expands and reaches remote corners of the earth, the influx of foreign values, money and goods alters the cultural landscape, sometimes permanently. Often the result is that local people are forced away from their traditional lands, life-styles and heritage. When travelling for a destination ecotourists would like to ensure that the money spent by them retain in the country they visit.

] No doubt that Sri Lanka is heavily suffering from the COVID 19, from the street vendor to the blue chip conglomerate Destination Management Companies. During the Presidential Elections, Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse promised to formulate strategies to attract 06-07 million tourists by 2025 and make US $ 10 billion income. Currently, this is highly unlikely that those goals turn to be realistic figures. Additionally, the target of achieving 3.5 – 4 million tourists and earning US $ 5 billion in 2020 is also highly unlikely considering the present spread and growth of the pandemic and international travel trends.

For many years, Sri Lanka Tourism is suffering from ‘Number Syndrome’. COVID 19 could find out a lasting cure for these ills. In the light of the current situation it is high time that Sri Lanka Tourism should revisit their marketing plans and tourist traffic projections.

Writer is of the view that Sri Lanka Tourism should develop tourism product on a sustainable manner and respecting the sustainable concepts, rather than targeting a ‘Head Count’ to increase tourist traffic to the country and trying to promote international hotel chains. In the future it will be better to think of developing people friendly, low-impact, and high-end up market tourism fabric in Sri Lanka as against the mass tourism. It is also equally important to promote and support small-scale ecofriendly property developers offering them of low interest ‘Green Loans’. In the months ahead, if Sri Lanka could think of attracting even 300,000 high-end tourists as against the 4 million tourists with a hope of earning US$ 5 Billion should be very pragmatic. Perhaps, with that 300,000 high end tourists the country could earn targeted foreign exchange close upon to US$ 5 billion!

To achieve the above target, Sri Lanka Tourism should effectively drive the country’s socio-economic development. The Development Policy Framework of the Government of Sri Lanka should aim at positioning Sri Lanka as a ‘model tourist destination’ benefiting from the country’s natural advantages of having the highest bio diversity in Asia backed by a strong culture, historical artifacts, exotic beaches, green environment and friendly people all of which are solid building blocks for tourism development. In the light of these, Sri Lanka should not compromise its natural wealth at stake, promoting ‘Numbers’ and introducing gambling, discos, night clubs, casinos etc. to attract ‘any kind of tourist at any price’! We, the activists of Sustainable and Ecotourism are of the view; that this is where Sri Lanka Tourism has gone wrong. There’s a very good lesson we could learn from Bhutan, our neighboring country. What is the ‘Tag Line’ of Tourism Bhutan? It is; Bhutan-Happiness is a Place!’Bhutan admires “Gross National Happiness’ GNH’ in contrast to the GNP- ‘In Tourism they believe ‘Value is more important than Volume! With fresh air, no chain stores, no traffic or fast food franchises, Bhutan is truly a gateway to dispel the worries of the modern world’ Bhutan is also 98 percent carbon neutral country.

As per the survey carried out by the Sri Lanka Ecotourism Foundation (SLEF) in 2009, the residual ‘tourists’, around 80% arriving in Sri Lanka are not up-market tourists. Most of these tourists are coming to Sri Lanka through multi-national tour operators in the generating markets on the budget tour packages offered in generating markets in the west, China, India etc. in collaboration with a handful of big time local tour operators in Sri Lanka. Most of these tourists do not belong to high yielding category. According to the statistics published by the International Ecotourism Society (TIES), a mass tourist usually spends 60-70 US$ per day. These tourists are taken on a very tightly controlled tour schedule and the visitor is deprived of visiting beautiful sites of the island at his/her wish. They are bounded on to a fixed itinerary. On the other hand an up-market ecotourist may spend in between 250-275 US$ per day, travelling freely and patronizing locally owned eco-friendly accommodations and supporting the local communities. Assuring part of tourism income for the well-being of the local community is very important as it contributes to eradicate poverty in the tourism generation areas in Sri Lanka.

We also should not forget the fact that economic leakage created by main stream tourism operators is also very high in Sri Lanka, estimated between 50-70 percent. As per the annual statistic reports released by the tourism authorities, they report the foreign exchange earnings are higher on year on year basis. This may be true when it comes to ‘Monetary Income’ but in terms of ‘Real Income’ the earnings may be much lower, because of the tourism income leakages mainly caused by operations carried out by the multinational controlled tourism giants and their agents based in Sri Lanka. This is somewhat similar to that of ‘brain drain’, an unfortunate dilemma confronted and experienced by Sri Lanka for years. As we are well aware, those that ranked tourism, in terms of foreign exchange earnings of Sri Lanka, Foreign Remittances that ticks – Rs.495.2 billion, as the highest foreign exchange earner in Sri Lanka. We shall be very happy if Sri Lanka Tourism could generate tourism income surpassing the foreign labor remittance while attaining the 4 Million tourist target in 2020, because, we believe that Rs. 485.2 billion of foreign remittance, reflects an ‘indicator of high level poverty level rather than prosperity’ existing in Sri Lanka. We have to bear in mind that much of the foreign remittances are coming to Sri Lanka through the earnings of house-maids employed in the Middle East countries. Therefore, it is writer’s sincere wish that while trying to achieve in ‘numbers in tourism arrivals’’ it is equally important to target up-market tourists who could bring much needed foreign exchange to the country. There is no point in focusing on a ‘head count’ unless the country receives substantial foreign exchange as ‘real income’. If Sri Lanka can attract more of up-market Free Individual Travellers (FITs) such as ecotourists it is much better than targeting large numbers of low spending average tourists. In simple arithmetic and in logical terms, it is good to have 20 up-market tourists spending minimum 250-300 US$ per day rather than low spending 100 tourists spending 100 US$ a day. It is a fact that an average tourist coming through a multi-national tour operator does not care about environment, culture, and way of life or travelling in a responsible manner. The money paid for the ‘big tour operator ‘is in fact is a leakage of foreign exchange earnings. In contrast, an ecotourist visiting a destination responsibly would wish to see whether the money spent by them retain in the country.

Nature loving, high spending responsible tourists, mainly belong to the category of Ecotourism. High spending, nature-loving, responsible tourists are undoubtedly an attractive option for the governments looking for ways of earning foreign exchange through tourism. But, is the type of tourists what we are getting at present and trying to prote in the near future?

In this context Ecotourism scenario in Sri Lanka has turned somewhat gloomy, because, there may be a lot of negative impacts caused by excessive tourist numbers and it will definitely create a physical and biological deterioration on the environment of Sri Lanka. With a view to achieve the set targets the present government is offering hefty incentive packages such as tax concessions and land use benefits to foreign investors in tourism sector. Already, a number of multinational hotel chains such as Shangri-La, Hayat, Sheraton, and Marriott have set foot in Sri Lanka and commenced their hotels and resort projects. Some of these hotels have more than 500 -700 rooms that could accommodate more than 1500 guests overnight. Currently, most of these hotels are empty cannot achieve even a lowest percentage of occupancy due to Pandemic. Some of these hotels are now being used and converted as mandatory quarantine centers. quarantine centers. Under the current tourism downturn in Sri Lanka what would be the fate of these hotels and the labour force employed by them?

The writer would like to mention a few more words on domestic and regional tourism. Sri Lanka should devise plans to revamp its domestic and regional tourism industry mainly focusing the Asia-Pacific Region. Most of the countries in the Asia-Pacific Region and the Pacific Islands have not very much affected by the virus and most of these countries promote sustainable and ecotourism. In difficult periods, when Sri Lanka Tourism confronted it was the domestic tourists in Sri Lanka came to the forefront to rescue tourism from the down turns. However, once the industry backs to normalcy the domestic tourists are easily sidelined and some of the hotels and restaurants put even sign boards ‘Foreigner’s only’, closing the doors for the domestic tourists

As concluding remarks I would like to quote Dr. Esi Akyere Mensah, Head, Department of Management and Human Resources, University of Ghana;

‘There is a lot of uncertainty, and the future is unpredictable for the hospitality, travel, tourism and events industry (HTTTE) One thing we do know is that travel hospitality and tourism will never be the same again. It is time to ‘reinvent’ travel and tourism for the sake of the people and planet. Nature has given us a second chance to rethink our trajectory. Work and recreation must be restructured, and leisure reconfigured to prioritize wellbeing and equity and the long-term sustainability of the world rather than just profit and ambition. In the meantime, let us stay put, let us stay home today and dream of travel tomorrow. Interestingly, before the coronavirus, there were concerns about over-tourism, (the overcrowding from the excess influx of tourists which often, result in conflicts with locals) as well as the exceeding of ecological thresholds and climate change due to tourism. Now it seems the pendulum has swung to the other end and under-tourism is what we may have to worry about. In the current situation are there any lessons to be learned? What has the virus taught us about the travel, tourism industry?