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By Hamzayini S.P ourism has become an important sector of Srilankan economy. The potentials for new trends have been increased rapidly (for example, special interest tourism). Nowadays there is a trend among tour operators is to organise the marine tourist trips. With the unique marine resources within Srilanka (for example many limestone ridge reefs, tropical marine life that includes fish such as rays, dolphins, and whales) the tourism industry could bloom as a marine tourism destination. The total coast length of Srilanka is 1,650km. Today Mirissa, Kalpitiya, and Trincomalee are achieving fame for whale and dolphin sightings. In order to attract the local & foreign tourists Sri Lanka has opened 101 hectares of coastal land as a marine national park in Hikkaduwa. There may be a lot of activities related to marine tourism, marine life observation, swimming & Trolling, lobster diving, water sporting, water Boating, Fish and marine life photography, etc…
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Srilanka is far away from the international competition in world market with other countries like Thailand. There may be lack of standards towards marine tourism. Therefore Srilanka needs to meet the demands for the accommodation & it needs to reduce the problems in transport to increase the demand for the marine tourism. When comparing to other countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, they have been identified the potentials of marine tourism and taken a leadership through protecting the marine areas and minimize the impact of both fishing & tourism industry. (For example in Malaysia Percentage of major tourism projects in coastal areas are 80%). But in Srilanka the marine pollution is in the high rate and there are some activities in coastal areas which is disturb the animals. Srilanka has to be developed as a main marine tourism industry. Therefore the marine assets of Srilanka should be protected and the marketing has to be increased. Government has to be involved and it should create the rules & regulations for marine tourism area protection, and reduce the illegal fishing and other activities.