Sustainability now: Sustainable tourism

 This week the Asia Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference is taking place in Colombo with high level participation and key experts from the industry. Sri Lanka is praised on the one hand for improving the sector and assumed to be one of the top tourist destinations within the upcoming years. On the other hand the industry is, among other suggestions, also requested to create interesting and sophisticated experiences, look into its visa policy and keep up its momentum.

As reported in this Tuesday’s Daily FT: “Three factors including a responsible organisation for tourism development, such as a tourism ministry, communicating benefits to the industry and creating job opportunities were stressed as key strategies necessary to build Sri Lanka as a tourism destination ….to invest in the unique selling propositions of the country such as people, location, heritage, culture and nature….these years have been declared to planning for the next three years and win all challenges in the fields of hotel and tourism in Sri Lanka by 2020.”

It is encouraging to see conferences like this taking place in Sri Lanka and it leaves hope that during the discussions real challenges which the industry is facing are brought up and debated with the objective of finding practical solutions. There is no doubt that Sri Lanka has the potential to attract a large number of tourists each year given its fascinating and diverse natural and cultural heritage. It is now the time to look at current and future developments comprehensively and holistically – and this can only be reached by including the triple bottom line. 

Unique destination

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry would suffer significantly without being able to offer rich and diverse flora and fauna as well as healthy, well off and happy people. Isn’t this what we try to sell? It is a fact that the majority of tourists (besides business visitors) are not visiting Sri Lanka to see Colombo; they come to travel across the country, to see the beaches, mountains, paddy fields, seas, lakes, leopards, elephants, Sinharaja rainforest, Yala and Wilpattu National Park and heritage sites like Dambulla, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. They come for diving, surfing, hiking, Ayurveda treatments and relaxing on the beach. Foreign tour agents never miss Kandy, Dambulla, Galle, beach and wildlife on their advertised packages; some start their tour straight from the airport and leave out Colombo entirely.

Sri Lanka is unique in a sense that within a short time a visitor can see various landscapes and habitats, engage in a number of sports and activities and witness the country’s varied cultural heritage. The island is small in size but large in possibilities. 

Protecting this unique selling proposition will be crucial for the sector. To be competitive in the future, the natural and cultural heritage has to be preserved, the current condition of the national parks and other wildlife attractions has to be improved by regulating access and visitors and local communities have to be included in the tourism industry. Only then can a unique and enjoyable experience be created. 

Which country can offer sea, lakes, mountains, desert, lagoons, paddy fields, rainforest, different types of beaches, tea hills as far as one can look, waterfalls and rivers, a multitude of birds, leopards and other wildcats, bears, elephants, different sorts of whales and dolphins and other underwater marine life, hundreds of ship wrecks and dugongs (yes there are dugongs in Sri Lanka!) in one island? This is not even mentioning the variety of fruits and other foods which one can enjoy here. Which country is comparable to Sri Lanka in that? Many countries have great hotels, high rising structures and enormous shopping centres, these are all manmade. Sri Lanka has a heritage which is unique and can be explored by the interested traveller within no time. 

Accommodation and transport as well as different forms of tours and activities have to be developed in sync with the required conservation mechanisms and systems to preserve natural habitats. Where a variety of accommodation possibilities can be created, regulations have to be complied with when it comes to waste, water requirements and land use. Hotels are taking on a crucial role in keeping the surrounding environment clean and safe. In addition to this they can take on a lead role in working with the local communities on waste management and involve them in related activities. Some good examples are taking place in Sri Lanka in this regard, which is very encouraging. 

No tourist enjoys a country which doesn’t care about waste management, especially if we plan to attract high-paying tourists we have to ensure that our beaches, waterways, forests and natural habitats are clean and recycling systems are in place. Who wants to swim in a sea where the sewage is entering the beach? Do we really need to organise numbers of volunteers each month to clean the beaches? There should be no waste there in the first place. Waste is a global issue and it affects the tourism industry heavily. This is a result of the failed waste management systems of the country as well as the waste tourists create themselves.

Foreigners only policy 

Another challenge which needs to be overcome is the implementation of ‘foreigners only’ policies on beaches and other tourist places around Sri Lanka. It is unacceptable for a country to in any way restrict touristic hotspots to foreigners. There are several accounts of incidents where Sri Lankan nationals were refused food or accommodation due to their nationality. 

Sometimes the respective signboards are written in Sinhala so foreigners cannot read them. Speaking to some of these service providers about their policy, I learnt that their justification for it were past negative experiences they had with groups of Sri Lankans, therefore they prefer foreigners. 

However, there are a few flaws with this argument. What they actually mean with their foreigners only signboards is ‘No fights’, ‘No sexual harassment’, ‘No staring at white women’, ‘No breaking of equipment’ and similar warnings. The fact is that foreigners also fight in bars, harass (local and foreign) women and men and destroy hotel rooms. This behaviour is not limited to Sri Lankans. It might be the case that there are more Sri Lankans than foreigners fighting in bars but this may be because there are more Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka than foreigners. 

Fighting, sexual harassment and destroying equipment should be subject to the rule of law and not nationality or colour. The Police will have to be tasked with handling incidents like that. If someone is exhibiting undesirable behaviour at a tourist destination that person can be denied access – again this should not be a matter of colour or country of origin.  

The root cause for such discriminating policies are not fights or harassment, it is the underlying assumption that foreigners are easier, pay more, well behaved and just ‘the better tourist’. It might also be the case that it is easier to rip off or cheat foreigners than locals, to ask for extortionate tuktuk fares and sell them items at a ridiculous price; you can’t really do that with Sri Lankans. But the fact is that a country which intends to improve its tourism should not encourage such behaviour in general – not for locals or foreigners - because even the latter finds out after some time that he or she was cheated and will remember this fact about the country.

Compared to other countries, local tourism is high in Sri Lanka. Flying out of the country for a holiday is costly, thus large numbers of Sri Lankans travel frequently to the beach or hills, even if it is just for a long weekend. Sri Lankans on average spend more at restaurants and hotels than foreigners. A significant number of travellers who come to Sri Lanka are still backpackers who are mostly on a tight budget. Compared to a Sri Lankan family they spend less during their holidays. 

Finally, whenever I witnessed that tourists found out that a restaurant, bar or hotel had a ‘Foreigners Only’ policy, they did not feel comfortable about it and were hesitant to select the service provider.

A foreigner who visits this country with an open heart and mind and sits in an establishment in Sri Lanka which does not admit locals does not leave feeling happy. It creates uncomfortable experiences for locals and tourists alike. 

Progressive tourism industry

There might be tourists who don’t care about this but the question is do we want them here? Do we want tourists who do not care if Sri Lankans themselves are not allowed services in their own country due to their nationality? Such tourists would also not really care about the natural and cultural heritage of Sri Lanka and thus cannot be the preferred target group I assume.

To facilitate a progressive Sri Lankan tourism industry these barriers have to be removed as soon as possible. Let’s remember the definition of sustainable tourism: “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities,” (UNEP, UNWTO). It further lists the following main aspects:

• Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.
• Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.
• Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.

Finally it states, “Sustainable tourism development requires the informed participation of all relevant stakeholders, as well as strong political leadership to ensure wide participation and consensus building.”

In Sri Lanka we have various organisations and departments linked to tourism, so far it was difficult to observe a coherent and efficient implementation of sustainable tourism strategies. 

Hope lies with initiatives such as the above mentioned tourism conference where key stakeholders and experts and political decision-makers agree on suitable solutions for Sri Lanka. One should remember that the tourism industry is important for Sri Lanka as we all know. However, tourists come and go, they have a choice and if they do not like a country they visit they simply don’t come again. 

If tourism development is done in an unsustainable manner, it will only harm those who live in the country in the long term. However, if the country is forward-looking and understands how to protect its heritage, regulates where necessary and plans developments sustainably, tourists will come and visit anyway because a tourist is “a person who is travelling or visiting a place for pleasure.”  

(The writer is working as a consultant for sustainable development with the business sector, multilateral organisations and civil society on projects involving sustainable consumption and production (inclusive supply chains and industry development, renewable energy, consumer behaviour, waste management) and peace building (SD conflicts, social integration, resource conflicts). She is the founder of the Sustainability Hub Sri Lanka and the Colombo Fleamarket. She can be reached via [email protected].)