Abstract:
It has been a vast development of Information Technology in the globe. Geographic
Information System (GIS) has been recognized as a useful tool by wide range of
disciplines in managing, storing, analyzing and visualizing the spatial and non spatial
data. Tourism is one of the disciplines which can be applied GIS technology to get
maximum benefits. Tourism in Sri Lanka also helps to develop the economy of the
country and it provides economic values to tourism resources as well. This study
addresses to identify the recreational opportunity in protected areas in Sri Lanka by
using GIS with special reference of Udawalawe National Park as one of the worth full
protected areas for flora and fauna in Sri Lanka. The main objectives of the study were
to identify potential areas for recreational activities in different degree and quickest
and the cheapest paths for achieve various destinations inside the park and to publish
all information related with tourism through Web GIS. Further, the study was analyzed
the socio economic changes specifically due to tourism industry. The 1:50,000 digital
data and topographic data from the Department of Surveying were used to create
recreation related maps. Digitizing, Topological applications, Network analyzes,
Geodatabase models, weighted overlay techniques, DEM, Proximity analysis, Web GIS
were used to create and analyze the spatial data using Arc GIS 9.3. The secondary data
were used to identify the current situation of the study area. Primary data was
collected through a questionnaire survey and observation. Randomly selected 50
tourists and 100 of community members who are living around the study area were
considered to analyze the socio economic changes due to the recreational activities.
Chi-square was used to analyze the primary data using SPSS 16.0. To present the spatial
and non spatial data maps, charts, tables were used. Finally all tourism data were stored
inside the Geo-database using Transverse Mercator projection system. Study is
identified the tourism potential areas including sight seen, adventure, and
environmental sensitive areas. Study created a model based on the transport network
system inside the park to identify the quickest and the cheapest paths to achieve
various destinations. All information published through web GIS to easy access to the
tourists. Study pointed out strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of
recreational potentials in Udawalawe National Park, Sri Lanka.
