Sri Lanka Tourism Industry Socio Cultural Environment

 Socio Cultural Environment

The socio cultural Environment, than, consists of the whole range of behaviours and relationships in which individuals engage in their personal and private lives, including:

• The characteristics of the population (e.g. age, sex , race or ethnicity, class)

• Values and attitudes

• Lifestyles and relationships.

Culture is an attribute of groups, and this can mean society as a whole, groups within society, or even groups of societies and nations.
For example, the culture of Sri Lanaka has been influenced by many thing in the past but has For example, the culture of Sri Lanka has been influenced by many things in the past but has managed to retain much of its ancient and rich aspects. Mostly it has been influenced by religion and colonization by the Dutch, the Portuguese and the British.

As with other aspects of the environment, the relationship between business, culture and society involves a two- way interaction. Although we tend to think of business as operating according to a distinctive instrumental rationality of profit- and-loss and the 'bottom line' it is also influenced by the social-cultural setting in which it is embedded. At the same time business affects the wider culture and society profoundly. These influences can be seen as either positive or negative.

For example, a good deal of what we think of as making up the culture of modern society consists of the outputs of private sector businesses in what might be called the culture industries, such as popular music, films, literature, newspapers and magazines.

The culture industries make up a significant part of business activity, reflecting the shift from manufacturing to service industries in the wealthy economies. Culture has become increasingly big business as a growing share of consumer expenditure is dedicated to 'lifestyle' purchases rather than material necessities. This can be seen in the growth of the wide range of businesses concerned with leisure and tourism.

For example, cheap flights have enabled growing numbers to widen their cultural horizons through foreign travel and local travelling which means a traveller can travel locally by using aircrafts.

Tourism sector is becoming the most powerful growth engine in the new millennium. Tourism involves traveling to relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural areas with the specific objects of studying, admiring and enjoying the scenery and its wild flora as well as other existing cultural and historical aspects. Theses include places of archaeological and historical importance, pilgrimage canters, sanctuaries, national parks, hill resorts and sea beaches, etc. Tourism is traveling for predominantly recreational, leisure purposes, or the provision of services to support this leisure travel. The world Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purpose not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited".