News
A growing menace
View(s):
Story and pix by Athula Devapriya and N.Kumarasinghe.
Touts and vendors are a growing menace to the booming tourist industry with almost all cultural, scenic and tourist areas flooded with vendors
Beggars like this one do little to enhance the scenery
forcing their products on annoyed foreign tourists.
Whether it is in the Southern towns of Galle Fort and Hikkaduwa, the city of Anuradhapura, the rock fortress at Sigiriya, touts follow tourists unaware of their travel purpose, budget or needs. Added to the menace touts are beggars, parading a multitude of woes.
Henry Clarke, a tourist visiting the historic Galle Fort, said he had been trying to avoid touts selling their handmade crafts. He suggested authorities put up stalls, as tourists
Female tourists are a special target of male touts
instead of enjoying the scenery, were running hither and thither to avoid touts.
“Touts are unaware that some tourists are souvenir collectors, while others are here to enjoy the scenery and take photographs,” said another female tourist from France.
Even at the Bandaranaike International Airport foreigners are subject to harassment by porters who demand high fees for helping transport their baggage.
Our pictures capture varied forms of harassment faced by tourists at the airport as well as in Galle.
From the time of arrival at the BIA tourists are harassed by touts, vendors and beggars