Sri Lanka has a long history of tourism, dating back to the times of ancient kingdoms. According to different sources of historical accounts, many foreigners have visited the country for various reasons. Ancient chronicles provide ample evidence of visitors such as Fa Hien, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, not as tourists in the modern sense, but for different reasons visiting the country. Europeans started visiting Sri Lanka from the beginning of 16th century mainly for trade, firstly the Portuguese and then the Dutch and British, culminating as invaders. The arrival of tourists may have increased during the Dutch and British periods along with the expansions of international transactions of the country, especially rapid expansion of the plantation sector during the British period.

Even though the Ceylon Tourism Bureau was established in 1937 to promote the sector; its functions were affected adversely by the Second World War. The tourism did not receive an adequate attention in the early stages of the post- independence era as abundant prosperity was generated by the plantation sector. Along with the changing economic contours, new avenues were being explored in the subsequent years. The Ceylon Tourist Board was established in 1966 after identifying the potential of tourism, and later it was replaced by Sri Lanka Tourism Authority in 2007. The arrival of tourists increased slowly but surely since late 1960s and the arrivals reached to 103,204 in 1975 and 2,116,407 in 2017. The tourist arrivals increased by three fold between 1975 and 1980 and again it increased by 21 fold between 1975 and 2017. There were ups and downs of the industry due to domestic as well as international factors in the past. Among all, the civil war (1983-2009) retarded the progress of the industry to a great extent. Tourist arrival increased rapidly since the end of the war although the annual growth rate has not been steady after the early increase.

"Sri Lanka is an island country and god has given to Sri Lanka blessings of nature blue seas, green hills, sandy beaches, abundant wildlife, cascading waterfalls, a riot of flowers and fruits, coconut groves, tea estates, spice gardens." (UK Essays 2017). The monarchs in olden days built a lot of monuments, pagodas, ponds, gardens, fortresses, tanks, sophisticated canal systems and stretches of rice fields. Colonial rulers introduced coffee, tea, rubber and large scale coconut cultivations. Similarly, they built colonial administrative buildings and bungalows, roads, railway system, towns and city centers, forts, harbors, airports and canals. The modern administration, law and order, communication system, health, and education were not second to any country in the world. Sri Lanka would have displayed this heritage to the rest of the world and generated