Post-war city to a tourism city: the perspectives of local stakeholders on post-war city tourism development in Jaffna, Sri Lanka
International Journal of Tourism Cities
ISSN: 2056-5607
Article publication date: 19 May 2021
Issue publication date: 15 October 2021
Abstract
Purpose
Wars destroy the tourism cities by causing damages to their cultural and natural attractions. However, the post-war cities have great upward potentials to develop through careful and integrated tourism planning. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the perspectives of local stakeholders on tourism development in a post-war city.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used qualitative methods in collecting and analysing the data while closely referring to pertinent literature. Interviews, observations and focus-group discussions have been the main data collection tools and content analysis was performed with NVivo (v.12) to analyse the data.
Findings
Analysis of interviews, focus group discussion findings and observations highlighted the availability of a plethora of tourism potentials within post-war Jaffna that include, both cultural and natural attractions: Hindu Kovils and Buddhist temples, colonial heritage, traditional cuisines and way of life, beaches, flora and fauna and sceneries. The study further identified a lack of professionals, absence of a master plan, remoteness, poor infrastructure and absence of tourist activities as main obstacles for tourism development in Jaffna. Finally, implications are forwarded based on stakeholders’ perspectives to promote post-war city tourism in Jaffna.
Originality/value
Wars are not common, and post-war tourism cities are rare. The present study is focused on a destination where the war has ended, causing much damages to the destination. The study evaluates the tourism potentials and challenges based on stakeholders’ perspectives and forwards implications for city tourism development despite post-war empirical glitches, which have rarely been addressed in the tourism literature.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by a Rajarata University Research Grant in 2018 (RJT/R&PC/2018/FMGT/R/04) and the financial support is duly acknowledged.
Citation
Dissanayake, D. and Samarathunga, W. (2021), "Post-war city to a tourism city: the perspectives of local stakeholders on post-war city tourism development in Jaffna, Sri Lanka", International Journal of Tourism Cities, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 602-621. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC-05-2020-0111
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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