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LOCAL EMPLOYMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS IN SRI LANKA
Guides
Tikalanka Tours only employs Sri Lankan guides and drivers. The National Guide Lecturers and
Chauffeur Guides who escort visitors around the island are all licensed and accredited by the
Sri Lanka Tourist Board. Experienced guides for trekking, safaris and other specialist activities
are hired locally and have extensive knowledge of their chosen area of expertise.
This not only contributes directly to the local economy and provides much needed
employment but also enhances the travellers’ experience of Sri Lanka through personal
contact with the island’s people.
Transportation
Tikalanka Tours offers holidays to Sri Lanka for individuals, couples, families or small
groups of up to eight (8)
persons. Our small group sizes allow us to use cars, small vans or jeeps when travelling around
the island and when visiting rural areas and National Parks, where use of larger vehicles in
such areas often results in widening and blacktopping of rural paths for coach access. The
resulting effect on the environment can be devastating. We feel that our small group sizes
also lead to less impact both on the environment and the people that we visit as well as
allowing for more supervision, advice and explanations with the high ratio of guides to
travellers. The vehicles used for our tours are all regularly serviced to maintain safety
and comfort, and to reduce pollution levels.
Accommodation
Tikalanka Tours actively promotes small family-run guesthouses that employ local workers, or
in the case of larger hotels, locally owned establishments. We are also developing village
homestay projects in rural communities. This policy contributes directly to the local
economy and provides local employment while enhancing the visitor’s experience of Sri Lanka.
Village homestays are an important future project for Tikalanka Tours. They promote cultural
exchange at a very personal level, provide income directly to the houses in which we stay,
and enable local villages to fund community-led projects leading to clean water and
electricity supplies, access improvement schemes, and healthcare facilities
(see Community-led projects in Sri Lanka).
Restaurants
Embracing local cuisine is an essential part of any holiday if the visitor is to understand
the country’s culture and savour its culinary delights. Tikalanka Tours encourages travellers
to eat at traditional restaurants, roadside eateries, street vendors and market stalls in
order for them to enjoy and experience authentic Sri Lankan food. Again this contributes
directly to the local economy and provides employment in the local food industry, as well
as helping to counter the opinion that tourists only eat Western-style fast food.
We are not in favour of frequenting Western food outlets where they have replaced local
food retailers, or Sri Lankan restaurants that are promoting Western-style food.
Thankfully Sri Lanka has very few Western-style restaurants outside of Colombo and
Tikalanka Tours will continue to promote local Sri Lankan cuisine on all of its holidays.
Crafts, souvenirs and shopping
Local goods always make interesting souvenirs to take home for family and friends. Sri Lankan
craftsmen are renowned for their jewellery making, metalwork, woodcarving, and weaving.
Tikalanka Tours encourages visitors who would like to take souvenirs home with them to buy
locally produced goods since this helps to preserve traditional crafts while at the same time
contributing to the local economy.
Tikalanka Tours is against illegal trade in endangered species and their products and
therefore actively discourages travellers from buying such goods. For more information,
visit the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES) website at www.cites.org. We also do not condone the use of wood that does not
originate from well-managed plantations independently certified by the Forestry Stewardship
Council or that is illegally logged from ancient forests. For more information, visit the
Greenpeace website at www.greenpeace.org.
Reasonable quality clothes are sold for ‘rock-bottom’ prices at fashionable stores around
Colombo. The reason for such low prices is due to the off-loading of seconds and excess
stock from the powerful garment export industry in Sri Lanka, which allows retail stores
to set prices well below those overseas. Garments account for more than 40% of Sri Lanka’s
export income, mostly from sales to the USA (60%) and EU (35%), and the vast majority are
manufactured by women working for very low salaries and living in cramped and unsanitary
conditions. Tikalanka Tours does not condone this practice, however we recognise that the
workers themselves do not want foreign tourists to boycott the bargains, but want rights
that are recognised in national labour laws and at International Labour Organisation
conventions. For more information, visit the Transnationals Information Exchange-Asia
website at www.tieasia.org.
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