Potential for the Promotion of Food Tourism in Galle Face-Colombo

Abstract

Sri Lanka is a country well known for tourism, hospitality, and other tourism related activities. However, there is an increasing trend of tourists’ arrivals and decreasing pattern of tourists staying nights in the country. As tourists are encouraged to stay a few nights in the country, promotion of short term tourism experiences for the tourists will be an effective utilization of the available natural and man-made resources for the treasure of tourism industry. In order to suggest an effective conceptual framework, questionnaire method was used to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with Galle Face. Convenience sampling which is a non-random sampling technique has been used to select the sample The questionnaire was the main source of primary data collection as well as secondary data were referred in order to facilitate the background of the study. Descriptive statistics, SWOT analysis, and chisquare test were used to analyze data with the assistance of SPSS version 21.0 and Microsoft Excel 2010. The results of the study identified that most of the customers are aware of Galle Face as a beach and a play area. None of the customers as well as tourists tended to visit Galle Face due to popularity of its foods, but the majority of the customers buy some street foods from the street vendors. Similarly, the research identified that there is a huge opportunity to improve Galle Face as a destination for Food Tourism.