This is being extolled by the industry as a commendable example for responsible tourism, a concept which is fast catching up in destinations worldwide. However, bumsters continue to torment the African beaches.

These contrasting experiences were among several interesting case studies presented at the Second International Conference on Responsible Tourism which got underway here on Friday. According to Charmarie Maelge, executive director of Responsible Tourism Partnership, Sri Lanka, the beachboys were earlier acting as a mafia along the two-kilometre-long Beruwela beach in southwestern Sri Lanka.

“Not a guest came through the gate of hotels on the beach without being persecuted, surrounded or being howled at,”  she said. Tourists complained that the boys “were like monkeys” who vied with each other to shout the loudest so that the guests wanted to quickly return to their hotel rooms. That was how the RTF  launched a pilot project to address the problem. “We found that their educational status was not the problem, but their livelihood,” says Charmarie. Thus began a training and counselling session for the boys resulting in their complete image makeover.

The project was called LINC (Learning and Involving Community). Today the community beachworkers are pleasant faces on the Beruwela beach who wear smart outfit, speak fluent English and welcome tourists with flowers. As the hassles for the tourists were minimised, the intervention also benefited the local community.
Responsible tourism simply meant both the guest and the host taking responsibility for destination management so that the local community and the environment benefited from the association. However, a similar experience in the Gambia was not as successful since the extent of deprivation was more severe, said Lucy McCombes from Responsible Tourism Management, University of Greenwich.