Abstract:
Rural tourism is one of the niche markets of the tourism industry and crucial determinant
which mostly deals with the rural lifestyle. Sri Lanka is a country that has the potentials
for rural tourism development as an island with rich natural resources and human capital.
Yet, there is a few types of research related to rural tourism development in Hiriwadunna
Village Track, Meemure, and Heeloya Knuckles Valley Tourism village in Sri Lanka
conducted on rural tourism activities regularly as one of their main livelihoods. The main
focuses of this study were to identify the impact of destination attributes on visitor
satisfaction and determine the contribution of rural tourism initiatives on the household
economy and socio-culture of tourism stakeholders. A convenient sampling technique
was used to select two sets of respondents such as 100 foreign, local visitors, and 12
tourism stakeholders as the sample. Both quantitative and qualitative research design
(mixed methods) was adopted in the research. The information was derived from
questionnaires and structured interviews. The study used descriptive analysis, multiple
regression analysis, and thematic analysis methods. Findings indicated that attraction,
accessibility, amenities, ancillary services, available packages, and activities (destination
attributes) significantly influenced visitor satisfaction. The need to improve accessibility
and ancillary services through infrastructure development. The benefits of rural tourism
have been expressed as direct employment, economic growth, social empowerment,
living standard, cultural exchange, and destination image. According to the results, the
negative impacts were revealed as poor quality jobs, cost of living, cultural influences,
and misbehavior. There is a huge potential to develop sustainable tourism concepts under
rural tourism such as agro-tourism, community-based tourism, and nature-based tourism
as an instrument of multidimensional poverty in these rural areas.
.
Keywords: Rural tourism, Destination attributes, Tourists satisfaction, Household
economy
