Abstract:
Beach sites are considered as one of the major travel motives of the tourists to visit Sri
Lanka. Sri Lanka is rich with wonderful beach sites including Hikkaduwa, Unawatuna,
Bentota. However, many tourists visiting Sri Lanka have to undergo many forms of
harassment. Ensuring safety of tourists in the tourists’ destinations is an important
factor to retaining the higher number of tourist arrivals to the country since it is
significance to the Sri Lankan Economy. Amidst to this background, the main objective
of this study is to identify the types of the harassments faced by the tourists at beach
sites in Sri Lanka and to identify the impact of tourists’ harassments to the destination
image and the propensity to repeat. Both qualitative method and quantitative method
used to carry out the study. Primary data for the research were collected using a
questionnaire survey with tourists and the discussions with the community members,
site guides, hoteliers, officers who work in tourism related organizations. Further,
secondary data were collected using articles published in the internet, tourists police
reports (RTC-PTD Report) and tourist magazines. Both systematic random sampling
method and convenience sampling method used for the study, respectively sample the
foreign tourists from Hikkaduwa and the inter-viewers. The study revealed that the
tourists who stay at Hikkaduwa undergo of harassments from different parties like
beach boys, pesters, thieves…etc. These harassments create dissatisfaction among the
tourists and it also affect for the destination image and the propensity to repeat.
