Abstract:
Tourism in Sri Lanka involves mainly activities in the beach area. From the inception
of formal tourism, tourist product development, conservation, preservation and
protection have been given a high priority through land zoning and tourism legislation.
National Holiday Resorts were established mainly in coastal areas following the
recommendations of the first master plan and continued the same in similar subsequent
planning attempts. This paper evaluates those planning efforts and observes existing
land conflicts. The planning efforts were not worked as expected and conflicts have
arisen due to the lack of funding, implementation, co-operation, monitoring and
evaluation. The article hypothesises that land use planning for tourism requires total
co-operation of the state sector, private sector organisations and the local community
