| PROJECTS |
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The Responsible Tourism Partnership has two main areas of focus and our projects are based on; |
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Using tourism to help safeguard livelihoods of the communities and generate resources for environment restoration especially in the tsunami devastated coastal areas. |
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Developing initiatives to address issues seeking practical solutions for the long-term, sustainable development of tourism on the island. |
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| Safeguarding Livelihoods of the Communities and Generating Resources for Environment Restoration |
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Reviving Crafts through tourism
Women lace makers |
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Dickwella Lace Centre
In partnership with the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO), the Travel Foundation developed a project in Dickwella village badly affected by the tsunami. Its aim is to secure livelihood of the traditional lace makers, train unemployed young women in lace making and provide a sales outlet to those who do not have a place to sell their products and revive disappearing and a dying traditional craft through tourism.
Dickwella situated in the south coast is a famous area for traditional ‘Beeralu’ Bobbin lace making. Women in the area have been engaged in the industry for generations. Most of them earn very little in their business because they sell their products through middlemen. In Dickwella region over 10,000 families belong to low income earning bracket of less than £20 income per month.
The poorest of the poor women in Dickwella coastal villages are improving their skills as ‘Beeralu’ bobbin lace makers. This project in supporting revival of disappearing traditional crafts provides new livelihood skills to unemployed young women, helps women lace makers in marketing and product development creating an inspiring new product range that tourists would want to buy. Our work helps safeguard livelihood and income generation, authentic & a fair-trade craft experience for tourists. ‘Dickwella Lace’ is housed in a renovated 100 year old house affected by tsunami and accommodates a lace museum, retail outlet, training facilities and lace making demonstrations. Beneficiaries of the entire income from the project are the centre and the craft producers. |
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| Fact Sheet |
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Total trained in lace making |
102 |
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Total number of suppliers |
88 |
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Visitors are welcome at, Dickwella Lace, 198 Batheegama, Dickwella
(located diagonally opposite to the Dickwella Village Resort) |
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More information contact + 94 (0) 11 2 2381205 RTP head office in Colombo or Dickwella Lace Centre on +94 (0) 412255896 |
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Re-vegetation of tsunami affected coastline and restoring a rainforest
‘Trees for Life’ |
The Responsible Tourism Partnership in our conservational efforts has established tree nursery in the Hiyare Rain Forest in southern region Galle District to restore the rainforest, re –vegetate coast conservation areas, & provide trees with food, medicinal and economical value to re- settled tsunami affected families.
‘Trees for Life’ provides trees of food, medicinal and economic value to tsunami affected families and conducts stimulating environmental conservation awareness programmes for regional school children. It has established a number of community owned village tree nurseries creating income generation and self employment through conservation. Visitors to the nursery are encouraged to make a donation to support free distribution of trees. |
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Most of the relocating houses have been constructed on cleared land and families settled need shelter and basic food security. Highly demanded - Coconut, Jak fruit and other fruit trees such as Mango and Rambuttan, have been freely distributed to these families.
This nature conservation Trees for Life project has the most unique indigenous tree nursery. To date it has distributed over 175,000 trees for tsunami housing schemes, coast conservation sites, schools and planting in the Hiyare Rain Forest in a forest rescue mission reforesting the damaged areas. 06 community owned and managed nurseries, mostly by women are caringly supplying tress to the main nursery, providing valuable livelihood income for their families.
Over 12,000 school children have participated in environmental and bio diversity protection educational workshops.
Trees for Life is now a sustainable excursion promoted by the tour operators and anyone visiting Galle can visit the breathtaking Hiyare Rain forest and play their part in conservation by taking a educational nature trail, and also by planting trees.
Trees for Life implemented with the Wildlife Conservation Society Galle is in two parts:
- Tree Nursery grows trees and maintains sufficient stocks to be freely distributed to the families and coast conservational sites. Communities are encouraged to develop satellite nurseries in their gardens to further supply the needs of the area.
- Second part of the project seeks active involvement of tourists through the
programme, tourists are invited to visit the tree nursery located in a stunningly picturesque & peaceful lake and rainforest location in Hiyare, 20 minutes away from the Galle City. There are also opportunities to explore the strikingly diverse flora & fauna, whilst on a brief nature trail or to take a rowing boat ride enjoying the breathtaking scenic beauty.
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| Fact Sheet |
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Total plants at the main nursery |
38,425 |
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Total plants at Satellite Nurseries |
11,650 |
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Total number of community owned satellite nurseries |
06 |
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Total plants distributed since setting up Hiyare nursery |
173,473 |
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Educational programmes |
350 |
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Total tourist visits |
256 |
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Galle Ruassala Nursery 153
Hiyare Nursery 103
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School children participating in educational workshops |
12,000 |
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(As at 30th May 2009 at the Hiyare Nursery) |
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Cost of the nature excursion to Tress for Life Rs 1,000/= (inclusive nature trail, interpretation, entry fees and a donation to provide ore tress free of charge) |
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Contact Details |
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Trees for Life, Bio Diversity Education & Research Centre, Hiyare Reservoir,
Hiyare Galle |
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Project Manager (Sampath) 0773683880
Wildlife Conservation Society Galle/Hiyare 0915624227
Responsible Tourism Partnership 0112381205
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» Project at a glance ( 117KB  ) |
| » Informational leaflet to tourists |
| » Certificate of appreciation for participants |
| » Evening Standard 28th December 2005 ( 983KB ) |
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| Long term sustainable tourism initiatives |
The RTP in Sri Lanka is established with a steering committee comprising of key leaders of Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, government and other organizations such as NGOs. The group has prioritised several issues affecting the future sustainability of tourism at the destination in developing a programme of activities to be supported by The Travel Foundation UK. These programmes include such initiatives to link hotels and tourism attractions more closely with adjacent communities and addressing climate change issues.
Projects are focused on providing greater opportunities for small businesses to benefit from the tourism revenues and minimises hassle to tourists. The RTP works closely with government agencies and other relevant organizations and bring together a multi- stakeholder approach to sustainable tourism development in the Island. The other long term sustainable programme is the hotel sector carbon reduction strategy |
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| Learning Involving and Nurturing Community – LINC Project Beruwela
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Minimising Hassle and opportunities for local coastal communities:
‘Beach Boys’ converted to community ‘Beach Operators’ |
LINC project of the Responsible Tourism Partnership Sri Lanka is a shining example of how our work is addressing tourism hassle and creating a better environment for local communities to benefit from tourism. Beach boys in Sri Lanka are considered a menace, but by understanding and valuing how these communities depend on tourism income to raise their families and the importance of a hassle free holiday for our guests, we started working creating an unique model of bridge building and mindset changing exercise together with the beach boys and the hotels to make these groups to become beach operators.
The project starting with the Riverina Hotel in the southern Beruwela beach in February 2007 today has expanded to Neptune Hotel, Barbereen Reef Hotel, The Palms and the TaproSpa involving more than hundreds of local communities who have undergone extensive personal and professional development training. The staff of the hotels and the family members also undergoes training.
LINC project works towards minimising hassle to tourists and creating opportunities for local community to make a living from tourism by providing quality goods and services to tourists. |
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This challenging and most rewarding project, which is a long term initiative, aims to change mindsets, remove physical and mental barriers and create long term solutions for sustainable tourism experience for our visitors, our own communities and the tourism industry.
One of the main activities of the LINC was linking the informal with the formal tourism industry supported by intensive training and counseling. Weekly and monthly formal meetings with well planned agendas were held to discuss problems to find suitable solutions to move forward. |
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| Saving Lives - Life Guard Training |
Under the LINC project over 16 beach operators have become fully fledged Beuwela Beach Life Guards. LINC project is implemented with the support of the Bentota Beruwela Hotels Association (BBHA) and the Beruwela Pradeshiya Sabha.
Trained Beach Operators can be easily distinguished by their branded t-shirts featuring their individual names. |
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Benefits |
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Less hassle and more privacy to tourists |
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More tourists going to the beach leaving the hotel compounds |
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More income opportunities for the community |
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Equitable distribution of income to all groups (not based on ‘survival of the fittest’ - shouting and hassling tourist as they adhere to a turn system) |
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Reduction of guest complaints |
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Hotel and Beach Operators are working together on staging common activities and festivals
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| Fact Sheet |
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Training work shops conducted |
47 |
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Hotels staff trained |
365 |
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Number of licensed Beach Boys in Beruwela |
550 |
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Dependent number of families |
600 |
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Beneficiary of family members |
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Fully professionally trained beach operators |
138 |
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Beach Operators wearing uniform T shirts |
84 |
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Life guard training programmes |
22 |
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Hotel staff trained in lifeguard profession |
13 |
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Local communities trained in lifeguard profession |
32 |
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Professional lifeguards certified by LINC |
16 |
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Contact Details |
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Linc Project, C/O Tropical Villas, Moragalle, Beruwela |
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LINC Project Manager (Sujith) 0773993337
Responsible Tourism Partnership 0112381205
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| Engaging visitors Best Experience Sri Lanka… A Guide for Responsible Travellers |
In an attempt to engage our visitors in responsible tourism a guide has been developed and printed by the RTP. This guide, an easy to carry pocket sized attractive booklet containing light hearted cartoon type situation representations provides information on Sri Lankan lifestyles, her social and cultural practices to provide a higher level of sensitivity, understanding and comfort to the traveller.
In association with the Ministry of Tourism and the Department of Immigration and Emigration the guide is distributed to all visitors free of charge to enhance the enjoyment of their holiday in Sri Lanka. |
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| ‘Greening Sri Lanka Hotels’ |
| Optimization of Energy Efficiency and Natural Resources Sustainability |
Hotel facilities globally are ranked among the top five in terms of energy consumption in the commercial/service building sector this is no different in Sri Lanka. Reducing energy costs while continuing to meet the diverse requirements of the guests is proved to be a challenging task, hotels are highly unique from other buildings and from each other.
The main objective of the Greening Sri Lanka Hotels programme is to lead the hotel industry to improve their overall energy & natural resources management and environmental best practices. This would firstly result in improving the profitability by saving operational costs, thereafter reduce carbon emissions and enable further exploration of future opportunities for carbon trading as income generation and most importantly be positioned with a green image in the minds of the consumer and the trading partners to increase the tourists arrivals.
During the past decade, the Sri Lanka hotel sector has implemented various programmes in the area of reducing resource usage, especially energy, but the need and the motivation for these efforts have been purely cost-benefit issues rather than conserving the environment or addressing climate change issues.
The programme is initiated, supported and implemented by the strategic alliance of the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority of (SLSEA), the Responsible Tourism Partnership (RTP) and the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) and as a national sustainable tourism programme.
 The targets for combine energy and environmental impacts will be estimated, a minimum of 10% reduction of total energy consumption, 10% reduction of water consumption and 40% reduction of solid wastes will be set as an initial target for the first year 2009. Participation is not limited to foral sector but small |
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Contact Details
Greening Sri Lanka Hotels, responsible Tourism Partnership, 4th Floor, Jetwing House, Nawam Mawatha, Colombo 2
Tel +94 (0) 112381205
Responsible Tourism Partnership (Charmarie) 0773251088 |
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| Profiting from tourism in the future: the way forward |
| The RTP has carried out a large number of regional workshops and seminars, with hundreds of participants to educate and create awareness on sustainable tourism. Most recent workshop was the sustainable tourism forum on climate change ‘Towards a Carbon Neutral Sri Lanka : building Tourism Partnerships’. With wider industry decision making stakeholders participating. |
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For more details about our programme and projects in Sri Lanka, contact Charmarie Maelge, Responsible Tourism Partnership, 4th Floor, Jetwing House, Nawam Mawatha, Colombo 2, Sri Lanka
Tel +94 (0) 112381205,
E-mail: rtpcmaelge@sltnet.lk |
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