Place-based Coastal Tourism Impacts and Residents’ Quality of Life: A Case of Mirissa Coast, Sri Lanka( Vol-2,Issue-12,December - December 2016 ) |
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Author(s): Y N Weerasekara, Susantha Amarawickrama |
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Keywords: |
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Coastal tourism, Impacts, Quality of Life |
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Abstract: |
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Tourism, particularly coastal tourism is conceived as instrumental in transforming the society economy and the environment of a locality. Beyond the research on environmental dimension, only a limited number of empirical work could be noted on its impact on the social dimension-Quality of Life (QOL) of a community. Further, the available studies are mostly descriptive and explored residents’ perceptions of the impacts and resultant attitudes on QOL, and thus, of limited use for planning purposes. Therefore, this research examines the impacts of coastal tourism on quality of life of residents and its spatial variations as observed in Mirissa, a popular tourist destination in Sri Lanka. Both descriptive statistics and spatial interpolation methods are used to measure the impact of tourism on quality of life. The data was obtained from a questionnaire survey, interviews and observations. The research finds that coastal tourism impacts positively on the quality of life of the residents at the beginning stage of tourism development. There is a spatial variation of perceived quality of life in different parts of the tourism development area, experiencing more dispersed pattern towards the country side. |
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