Social Bonding Capital and people's Involvement in the Sri Lankan Tourism Industry

Abstract

Social Bonding Capital piays an important role in the sustainable community based tourism. The people's involvement (Personal Involvement) in the tourism development activities is affected by Social Bonding Capital. Four variables related to Social Bonding Capital in tourism deveiopment; namely social trust, social relation, social interaction and social mutual helps were identified. These variables fall under the category ofindependent variables and Personal Involvement comes under the category of dependent variables. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between Social Bonding bapital and Personal Involvement in Community Based Tourism. Data were collected from 50 respondents who were involved with homestay services in Heeloya Tourism Village in Kandy district, Sri Lanka. The eorrelation analysis was used to examine the association between Social Bonding Capital and bersonal Involvement. The results revealed that social mutual hetp and social trust are associated with Personal Involvement. Furthermore, social relationship and social interaction have no sigilificant influence on personal involvement. Therefore it can be concluded that social mutual help and social trust should be strengthened to enhance the Pe.1r,rs.onal Involvement in community Based Tourism