Potentials of Underwater Cultural Heritage Towards Tourism in Galle, Sri Lanka: Perspectives of Tourism Service Providers and Maritime Archaeologists

Abstract

Travelling to visit places with Underwater Cultural Heritage is becoming a significant niche tourism type worldwide. Because of its remarkable position in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka has always been a hub for sea trade. This makes Sri Lanka possess an abundant of Underwater Cultural Heritage. There lies a great amount of underwater cultural artefacts beneath the sea near Galle as the city has served as a harbour for a long time. This study was conducted to identify the contribution of Underwater Cultural Heritage towards tourism in Galle. The objectives of the study were, to identify the role that Underwater Cultural Heritage plays in tourism in Galle, to identify the destination capabilities of Galle to fulfil those requirements and to understand the ways that Underwater Cultural Heritage can be benefitted from tourism. The qualitative approach was adopted in this study. Data were collected from tourism service providers around Galle, maritime archaeologists and museum officers through semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed using the content analysis method. Major findings of this research include the strengths of the Galle area in terms of underwater cultural heritage, the great interest of tourists towards underwater cultural heritage and current weaknesses in the management of these values in the field of tourism. It was revealed that both tourism and underwater heritage could be mutually benefitted because of each phenomena’s presence through an integrated approach.