Abstract:
Sri Lanka is one of the tourist destinations in the world where tourism is very
quickly developing after the civil unrest was finished. People from different
cultures, religions, ethnicities join together through tourism. In the Sri Lankan
context, the tourism sector is massively contributing for bridging the foreign and
local tourists and paves the way for the multi-cultural multi religious, multi
lingual understanding through removing the barriers. Whereas peace through
tourism is a new dimension of the tourism, it also enhances peace and harmony,
sustainability of a country. This study is intended to examine how peace through
tourism concept is deployed in the mass tourism areas to promote peace and
harmony among the people through tourism activities and how peace through
tourism would be an imperative tool in the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka.
The academic writing on peace through tourism is rare. So, there is a need for
familiarizing peace through tourism concepts in the peacebuilding settings.
Specially in the North Eastern province where the local tourists (Sinhala, Tamil,
Muslim) are visiting and having interaction each other. Thus, this study has
mainly exhausted the primary data from field visits and the interviews among the
tourists especially at the Pasikuda, Batticaloa area and the northern peninsula and
the secondary data from related literature on tourism and peace tourism. Peace
through tourism would be a meaningful force in removing the barriers and
enhancing social integration of different cultural, ethnic people and sustainable
peace through incorporate effective peace-oriented programmes in the tourism
activities.
