An Analysis of the Effect of Tourist Harassment on the Destination Image of Sri Lanka: Foreign Tourists Perspective

Abstract

Tourism generates benefits and costs in terms of economic, social and environmental as a multi-faceted industry in any country. Tourist harassment has become a considerable issue in any destination and it will bring more detriments and also discourage the tourist arrivals. Sri Lanka is known as one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, however, there are evidences to prove that the tourists have been facing different kinds of harassments while staying at the destination and it is not healthy for the future sustainability of the industry is concerned. Therefore, the study aims to identify the prevailing nature of tourist harassment occur in Sri Lanka and analyze the effect of tourist harassment on the destination image of the country. The research was carried out in Southern coastal belt of Sri Lanka where occurred a significant number of harassments. A self-prepared, pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 530 foreign tourists. The collected data was analyzed by employing Descriptive Statistics and Multiple Regression Analysis. The results revealed that six forms of tourist harassment consist in Sri Lanka based on Consumption, Expression, Community, Vocal, Sexuality and Drugs. Among the six, only the vocal based harassment has significantly impact on destination image of Sri Lanka. Further, the tourist harassment occurred vary due to the several factors like adoption of local culture by the tourists at the destination, imitating the foreign culture by local community, availability of strong resistances on tourist harassment etc. Moreover, the tourists make efforts to tolerate the tourist harassments except vocal based harassments. Keywords— destination image, foreign tourists, tourist harassments