LOCAL TOURISTS OF RUHUNA (YALA) NATIONAL PARK: ZONAL VISITATION, TRAVEL COST A~ID WILLINGNESS TO PAY

Abstract

Ruhuna (Yala) National Park, a strict nature reserve which lies on the southern coast of SriLanka, covers 97,878 hectares ofland. The park comprises of secondary forest where manyspecies of mammals, avifauna, reptiles and birds .are living in substantial numbers. ThePark has achieved the international reputation. Evidently, all categories of some 100,000tourists, 70 percent of which are local tourists visit the Park annually. Tourism in asanctuary is both nature based and sustainable, and sustainability incorporatesenvironmental, socio-cultural and economic dimensions. There should be a control ofsupply-oriented management securing the environmental and economic benefits. Thepublic interest and enthusiasm in the Park could be used not only to market the product butalso to conserve the resources. Hence, the study attempted to analyze the local demand ofthe tourists for Ruhuna National Park with the view of improving Ruhuna National Park asan attractive tourist's destination.

The local demand of the tourists for Ruhuna National Park is measured as zonal visitationrate, travel cost, and their willingness to pay. The highest visitation rate is recorded fromBadulla (5.6) while the lowest rate is recorded from Matale (2.1) The visitors from Matalehave the highest total travel cost (Rs. 732.50). Hambantota visitors spend Rs. 115.04 as thetotal travel cost. However, the multiple regression analysis shows that the visitation ratewith income, age, educational level and total travel cost excluding the visitors from Mataraand Hambantota districts, is highly correlated (r2 = 0.935). However, the age issignificantly correlated with visitation rate while total travel cost has a significant negativecorrelation with the visitation rate. According to the local visitors, the willingness to payper person per year is calculated as Rs. I l6.41.