Sri Lanka’s Tourism: Competing with the region

Abstract

This Insight looks at a different dimension of the problem of growing tourism in Sri Lanka using the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) to derive the analysis. This global index assesses the extent to which economies are putting in place the factors and policies that enable sustainable development of the travel and tourism sector, which in turn contributes to the development and competitiveness of a country. Competitiveness in any industry works on the basis of outrunning others. Especially, when it comes to travel and tourism, Sri Lanka should be more focused on outrunning the region than outrunning the world. This Insight has surfaced the importance of regional competitiveness and identified the areas that Sri Lanka should focus on to grow the tourist industry by improving its attractiveness in the region.