Agri-tourism

Agri-tourism is like eco-tourism but focuses on local agricultural practices.

Community-based tourism necessarily implies the participation of local communities as the planners, managers and primary beneficiaries of sustainable tourism enterprises that support, dignify and respect local culture and resources.

Volun-tourism is a relatively new concept that sees visitors volunteering with local organisations, making sure that they give back as much as they can to the land offering them temporary hospitality.


The Bankability of Slightly Unorthodox Concepts
Within responsible and alternative tourism circles, even in Sri Lanka, definitions are still the source of debate and division. For example, eco-tourism purists scoff at those who flaunt the term but do not understand its true meaning. And many self-proclaimed eco-lodges and eco-tour operators (especially the larger ones) are derided as capitalising on the popularity of the appeal without committing to the full rigours of the practice. While this is a genuine concern, it demonstrates the bankability of slightly unorthodox concepts as a growing percentage of travellers seeks out experiences that are more participatory, interactive and authentic, and the proceeds of which feed more than the already wealthy and powerful city-based or international tour operators.

As the global tourism market shifts away from major tour operators, small alternative endeavours draw on a larger and larger piece of the pie. In 2000, the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) published estimates that by 2020, 20% of an expected 1,560 million tourists worldwide will consider themselves eco-tourists. Some organisations believe the WTO estimates will have been achieved well before 2010. Already there are more than 170 million alternative and responsible tourists in a rapidly expanding alternative and responsible tourism industry.

In Sri Lanka, some estimates place at 5% the number of tourists currently interested in alternative, responsible and sustainable tourism, a potentially explosive market of at least 40,000 people based on projections for tourism arrivals. Thus it should come as no surprise that Sri Lanka is peppered with alternative, responsible and sustainable tourism undertakings. These are slowly but surely gaining market share, especially in light of the tsunami’s devastation and the attention given to livelihood diversification and development and new income-generating practices. Even despite the continuing dominance and influence of the recreational mass tourism industry players, new models for tourism are being pursued, many of them more sensitive to community needs, social and cultural mores and environmental impacts. They have captured the country’s imagination. Local actors, NGOs, international tour operators and even the Sri Lanka Tourist Board are pursuing pilot projects in nearly every district.

Some of the worthy alternative, responsible, sustainable, natural, and/or community-based initiatives in Sri Lanka will appear in forthcoming issues of travelsrilanka. They deserve mention as viable non-mass tourism options that exercise at least some degree of responsible economic, socio-cultural and environmental sustainability.