Tourism Amid COVID-19 Pandemic in Sri Lanka Way-Forwarding Strategies Through the Porters’ Diamond Model

Tourism has been emphasized as one of the main sources of foreign exchange for different economies in the world, whereas most of the developing countries recognized hospitality, Travel, and Tourism as an inspiring element for socio-economic prosperity. Within previous decades, tourism satisfaction or “choice for destinations” were gradually transformed towards different segments as a paradigm shift. The nature of tourism provides a pathway on socio-economic development, whereby entrepreneurship and venture creations, renewal of forgotten natural resources with new value addition, and diminishing the poverty line. Within this notion, COVID-19 Pandemic identified as a peripheral economic shock whereas distressing remarkably to the global economies contrarily by restricting human mobilization, entertainments, and events while negatively affecting the global economy. This paper adopts the Diamond model proposed by Porter by linking the vulnerability of the tourism industry in Sri Lanka during 1st-2nd waves of the pandemic. Research objectives were developed to identify the wayforwarding strategies on recovering the Tourism amid the COVID-19 pandemic, study sample had been derived by prioritizing the locked-down of the country by targeting key stakeholders, and data were qualitatively gathered. Within the light of the literature, each of the six facets has been identified as “Themes” and qualitatively discussed. As main findings, “situational forces” were emphasized as the most vibrant economic facet within the model, whereas the following main recommendations were proposed as way-forwarding strategies; (a) Safety, security, and political harmony of the country (b) Subsidies for tourism MSMEs and conducive environment for entrepreneurship. (c) Destination promotions / e-promotion platforms (d) Attracting foreign joint-ventures/ investments, (e) Healthy rivalry among the local firms and collective bargaining, (f) Prioritizing Spiritual, Health and wellness, Rural and Ayurveda tourism, (g) Popularizing Tea related Tourism through brand image of “Ceylon Tea”.


INTRODUCTION
Travel and Tourism have been emphasized as the main source of foreign exchange as well as an emerging economic sector in the globe. In most developing countries, hospitality, Travel, and Tourism have been recognized as an inspiring element for socio-economic prosperity. Some scholars identified the sector as the number one ranked industry to the world economy herein, identified as a dynamic sector that vigorously assistances the global economic progression. According to World Travel and Tourism Council reports, tourism has contributed 10.3% to the Global GDP in 2019 (WTTC, 2020).
Further, Tourism has identified as one of the major economic sectors and due to the massive growth and development rate, the widespread volume of foreign exchange, and huge infrastructure development, all are contributing to the socio-economic development within different economies (Fernando, 2021). Within previous decades, the tourism satisfaction or "choice for destinations" were gradually changed towards different segments, as such relaxation, enjoy the nature, adventure and experience hunting. Herein the traditional tourism practices were slightly diminishing, by creating novel segments that are more focused on "feeling the destination and attributes". As scholars mentioned, the visitation process has converted into the areas of hunting for the experience, community engagements, and amusement-related experiences. These dissimilar revolutions have contributed to socio-economic development, high standard of resident livelihood, individual passion for life, and propensity to travel while forming novel tourism destinations around the world (Fernando, 2020). According to scholars, the sector correlates humans with relaxation, entertainment, adventure-seeking, inspiring the natural and cultural differences thus way forwarding human mobility and esteem needs (Fernando, 2016). Truly the sector is a vital economic imaginative for ability on destination prosperity whereas, contributing to enhancing the employments, foreign exchange producer, attraction for global investments and the main contributor on eradication of the poverty as highlighted by the World Travel and Tourism Council (Fernando and Long, 2012).
Tourism is a sector where the natural resource endowments of a country, such as salubrious climatic conditions, clean air, scenic locational beauty, landscape, bio-diversity are aligned with each other to provide "one tourist experience" to visitors. Scholars highlighted the true bond between these resources has led less-popular tourism segments to become identified and emerge, as such nature-based travels, Bio-diversity, Tea related tourism segments, mineral and gem-related tourism, and rural tourism (Pattiyagedara and Fernando, 2020). Within the latest decades, Special Interest Tourism (SIT) has emerged, while identifying the niche areas where could be targeted for a special segment of travelers.
Among them, these segments were highlighted by Fernando et al, 2016); spiritual, medical, Sex, marine, Tea, Eco, Rural, Adventure, Agro, rural, community, and Culinary tourism. Most of those SIT highlighting the vital role-playing by the natural resources endowment of a destination, the limited number of scholarly work based on the model. Further, some scholars stated the lack of empirical studies on the practical use of the Diamond model (Cluster Diamond) proposed by Michael Porter , whereas Enright et al., (2005), identify the Diamond model as the best model to identify the competitiveness of economies, specially the national competitiveness.
The author identifies the research question by linking the vulnerability of the tourism industry in Sri Lanka during the 1st-2nd wave of COVID-19. As the study framework, the paper demonstrates the "Diamond model" by linking the main stakeholders of the sector.
The main research question has been identified in this context as; What are the stakeholders' perceptions on recovering Tourism in Sri Lanka amid the COVID-19 pandemic?
The study objective is clearly defined by the author, as to qualitatively assess the perceptions of stakeholders for "future perspective" of Tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research objectives were formulated as;  Identify the stakeholders' perceptions on recovering Tourism in Sri Lanka  Proposing a set of strategies to recover Tourism in "NEW NORMAL" The paper adopts the economic variables /facets of the Diamond model to achieve the research objectives. The study framework lays within the 1st and 2nd waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Tourism is a widespread phenomenon and accounted as one of the main economic sectors among the world economy, where the main aims of relaxation, leisure, and pleasure have embedded. The nature of this tourism and hospitality sector is diverse than most of the other service industries, where the customer needs to start the "visitation" process (Miller and Gibson 2005;Kvist et al.,2006). The opening up of the national economies in the 1980s results in human mobility, globalization, and travel tourism around the globe. Further, Cunha and Cunha (2005) stated, these factors were the hidden force behind being ranked as one of the significant global sectors, rather than second only to the Finance sector. The rivalry is intensive among this industry, whereas a large number of developing countries and smaller Island destinations are emerging within. Hence the tourism destinations should ensure on following factors to be highlighted than the rivals; (a) tourist satisfaction (b) profitability and growth of industries  (Fernando 2015). As scholars highlighted (Inman et al.,2002), countries with less natural resources have emerged their strategy to be more innovative.
Thus these innovative processes and products could bring up the level of those less-privileged destinations to prosperity. Competitive skills, as a nation's prosperity, depends on the level of productivity and competitiveness of business and industries. The nature of these vital forces has been depicting in figure 2.  and Dwyer, 2003) and these questions are vital; "how significant the natural resources equated with the destination image? How imperative the price competitiveness and the management"? On the contrary, the locational advantage of a destination is vital to rivalry. Tourism is naturally covered with linkages in diverse directions to provide a tourism experience by the visitation process as the final product.
Indeed, there are countless stakeholders involved, directly and indirectly, and each participant strives to enhance the "perceived satisfaction" of the tourist. Hence this will enhance the image of the country as well creating a re-visit intention of the tourist. Policies and plans, organizational structures, and marketing strategies drive destinations more prosperity Crouch and Ritchie (1995), whereas the hidden key to become a top tourist destination. As a result, most countries are welcoming the tourists but undertaking little to intervene within the visitation process. That will intervene with the external tourism. Mainly for comparative advantage related to inherited resource endowments such as scenic beauty, flora, and fauna, biodiversity, climatic conditions, mountains, and rivers whereas, competitive advantage refers to destination management and how far a destination can face the rivalry. Hence the competitive advantage aligns with the quality of destination management, HR skills, and policies of government-imposed. Cracolici and Nijkamp (2006) mention the comparative and competitive advantage of tourism with two terms; (1) resource endowment as the comparative advantage and (2) resource deployment as the competitive advantage. Hence the resource endowment refers to human, physical, knowledge, capital resources as infrastructure/tourism superstructure, cultural/historical and heritage resources, and the resource deployment as audit and inventory, development, growth aspects, maintenance within the industry, efficiency, and effectiveness. Both quantitative aspects like the number of visitors to a tourism destination, market share, direct -indirect employment, tourism receipts, and qualitative measured variables as cultural heritage, topography, marine resources, and golden beaches, mountains and waterways, scenic environment all are linking to provide the "tourism experience" for the tourist (Kulcsar, 2009). Tourism is in a "paradigm shift" where the comparative advantages become less important than the competitive advantage within destinations (Iordache et al., 2010). This would result in traditional tourism destinations with a high comparative advantage will be The diamond model by Porter (1990), is supposed to represent how an economy, firm, or cluster can create a competitive advantage on an economy and specially the national Competitiveness. The Diamond model has been depicted in figure 3.

RESEARCH METHOD
The paper mainly focuses to identify the stakeholders' perceptions on recovering Tourism in Sri Lanka amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence the research method is aligning with the qualitative assessment with the stakeholder perceptions on the "future perspective" of Tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Further, the paper will propose a set of strategies to recover Tourism in "NEW NORMAL" amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The study population consisted of all tourism sector supply-side stakeholders in the local context. Since the country in the second wave of COVID-19, the study sample was selected from the locked-down areas of the country. As a vulnerable industry, the sector was devastated and the locked-down situation created the tourism stakeholders as "zero-income earners", whereas a huge amount of indirect employments also stagnated. The sample consisted of 50 tourism supply-side stakeholders and the structured interview sessions were conducted with a structured interview guide.
The interview guide developed based on each of the economic variables of the Diamond model.
Interview sessions were conducted basically via online methods and the data collection was accompanied in March -November 2020 (within the 1st and 2nd waves). The sample was distributed by covering the major tourist destinations in the Western province since the province was locked down during the 2nd wave due to a huge number of positive cases. The research is qualitative in nature, whereas the snowball sampling method was adopted to meaningfully locate the key supply-side stakeholders in diverse tourism associations. Due to the social distancing rules imposed by the Government, the global Travel and Tourism sector was highly affected due to the nature of the sensitivity. Since Tourism is one of the key industries within the Sri Lankan economy, the situation further worsened without any second thought. Specially the accommodation sector was highly affected due to the strict travel bans, closed down of the Airport, ban all tourist arrivals and cancelations of the events. This further worsened due to the cancellations of domestic gatherings, functions, and social events as wedding ceremonies. Therefore, the key stakeholder's perceptions via qualitative analysis that has been focused on the Porters' Diamond model were identified. Since the study method is qualitative, the author adopts the "thematic analysis method", where the identified themes are in line with the Conceptual model-Diamond model. The economic variable and behavior of the variables within the pandemic will provide fruitful insights to identify the "way-forwarding strategies" for the Tourism industry amid the Pandemic.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In the light of the scholarly works which were focused on the Diamond model, each of the economic variables or the facets of the model has been qualitatively assessed to identify the way-forwarding strategies to the sector. The author adopts these six parental themes which are linked with the conceptual model, whereas;

Theme 2: Demand Conditions
Demand conditions are further highlighted by the sophisticated demanding patterns, domestic travelers' demand patterns, and novel "shifts" within the demand. Some scholars emphasized (Miller and Gibson, 2005) most of the developing countries got an insignificant local base of sophisticated and demanding tourists, which resulted to let alone the upper-tier tourism development only. Absence of the sophisticated domestic demand might worse the tourism sector specially from a sudden shock within the external environment, as a terrorist attack, civil war, or a pandemic. According to Lin and Juan (2010), the existence of large-growing market segments ultimately produces a favorable demand condition within a country, whereas the niche-market segments would create a huge value. As a result, most of the small firms can get a competitive advantage from those niche markets. Herein domestic demand is vital to enhance the "industry-level innovations" and to reduce the communication channel length (Nordin,2003;Fernando,2015).
In a summary, the respondents agreed on the structure and size of the market, tastes of the travelers, desires of tourists with visitation process will be causative as main demand factors with the pandemic.
Further, since the sector has taken a smaller attempt to identify the domestic demand and domestic tourism, this "New Normal" could be the best era to cater towards the domestic market. Further, investing more in SIT's such as spiritual tourism, health, and wellness tourism could act as a breeding ground for innovations with the emerging domestic demand. In this context, domestic travel preferences should be monitored by the industry.
Hence as recovering strategies amidst the Pandemic, these four strategies were highlighted referring to the Diamond model which is a link with eco-friendly, activity-oriented, and nature-based exposure; i. Encourage domestic tourism by linking nature-based and eco-friendly travels ii.
Propagating the spiritual, health and wellness, Ayurveda related among the domestic market iii.
Popularizing water-related tourism activities as such; coral reef diving, Whale and Dolphin watching, surfing, Snorkeling among domestic market iv. Destination branding

Theme 3: Business Strategy, Structure and Rivalry
This facet of the Diamond model is focused on the structure of the industries, strategy on the various firms with their interconnectivity and rivalry. This further emphasized by different scholars, whereas the existence of rich natural resource endowments no longer makes it more "competitive" whereas the "competitive strategy" might do (Fernando, 2015). The Diamond model focuses more on this facet, whereas the structure of the industries, their interconnecting strategies, and healthy rivalry would be the most important aspects.
Respondents all agree with the vital role play by the industry structure, organization-management, and context for domestic rivalry, healthy competition between different firms, entrepreneurial predilection, and innovative business practice. Therefore, these three strategies were highlighted by the respondents which have a link with the Diamond model; i. Healthy rivalry among the local firms and collective bargaining ii. Focus on specialty markets and niche markets as a strategy iii.
Prioritizing the tourism Micro, Small and Medium Sector Enterprises (MSME)

Theme 4: Related and Supporting Industries
This facet of the model is emphasizing towards the industrial linkages among the related and supporting industries. According to the scholars (Miller and Gibson, 2005), these goals might lead to the growth of any industry as such; a) lengthening and strengthening the support for the core industry and b) reducing the leakages of the economy within the region. Hence the supply chain efficiency and strengthening the value-creation network among different industries (related -supporting) will prosper the industry growth. Some scholars stressed (Fernando, 2021) the tourism leakages within the valuedelivery network are substantially high in most of the developing economies. Hence, the related and supporting industry economic leakages would be maintained in a minimum position to enhance the economic value addition. All the respondents agree with the support provided by the related and supporting industries for Tourism in Sri Lanka. Further, the lack of related and supporting industries might hinder the growth of Tourism whereas the support of the related -supporting industries should be promoted. Herein following could be identified, shopping malls, natural resources, and venture creation, institutions as medical centers, local entrepreneurship development, IT, communication, and security.
As a summary, two way-forwarding strategies were highlighted by the respondents to be resilient in "New Normal"; i. conducive environment for the related-supporting industries in Sri Lanka whereas to diminish the economic leakages ii. diversification of the industrial sector with novel venture creation equality (Miller and Gibson, 2005).
In summary, the respondents highlighted the government as a sole-policy developer for an economy as well the tourism industry, whereas to accelerate the prosperity. Within the face of "New Normal", almost all of the policies regulations should be again re-addressed and novel regulations would be imposed on local industrial development, protecting the infant industries, venture creation, subsidies for tourism MSMEs, and destination image building. Herein, the following strategies were identified by the respondents as to be resilient within the pandemic; i. Safety, security, and political harmony of The country ii. Impose subsidies for tourism MSME's iii.
Destination promotions collaborating with the e-promotion platforms iv.
Attracting more foreign joint-ventures and investments to the country

Theme 6: Situational Forces or Chance
As the last sub-economic facet, the situational forces are linked with the external economic shocks, threats from the macro environment, political changes, novel market trends and patterns, disasters, and pandemics where the destination does not have any controlling power. Due to the nature of the dynamic environment, the 'chance or situational forces' are the places where the industry would link more innovations or "out-of-box strategies" (Fernando, 2021).
Within the sample, all the respondents highlight this facet as the most influential facet, due to the nature of the variable. Further, as a vulnerable industry to the "external shocks" as a disaster or a pandemic like COVID-19, Tourism would come out with a "second plan" or "plan B" on execution. Therefore, following way-forwarding strategies were prioritized by the respondents and align to the Diamond As a conclusion, almost all respondents highly expressed the stakeholders' vulnerability to the pandemic as an external shock as the most vital facet of the Diamond model. Further, Pandemic inspire the tourism industry as an external shock, whereas "out-of-box" strategies and innovations would be proposed by the industry. Further, the pandemic has been highlighted to responsible for the downturn of the market than other forces of the model. Hence, these mentioned 6 themes with each of the identified way-forwarding strategies are proposed to the industry within the "New Normal"

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Hospitality, Travel, and Tourism are considered as one of the main economic sectors and a multicomplex system, which includes food and accommodation, entertainment, pleasure and leisure, events, spiritual and community involvements. Tourism is a vital economic sector that is combined with both pandemic. As the methodology, the study sample had been derived by prioritizing the locked-down areas due to COVID-19 in the Western Province, Sri Lanka by targeting 50 key stakeholders. Structured interview sessions were conducted via online methods and the snowball sampling method has been adopted to meaningfully locate the key stakeholders in diverse tourism involvements. Within the light of the previous scholarly works, each of the facets of the Diamond model has been qualitatively discussed by designating as "themes", and focus on the main objective to identify the way-forwarding strategies within the sector amid the Pandemic. Accordingly, situational forces were identified as the most vital facet of the Diamond model and further highlighted the external environmental shocks that might shape the future sustainability of the industry. Most respondents highlight the importance of the destination brand, image for "Ceylon Tea" and tendency towards Health and wellness tourism might be the future prospects of the Tourism in Sri Lanka. Paper provides research directions for the future scholars, as such empirical testing of each facet of the Diamond model by approaching country-wide sample. Further, this model could be tested in a comparative approach whereas different regions, segments, or even destinations could be targeted.
Hence these findings will be a guiding light for the policy makers since these are specially catering to the impact of the COVID-19 on Tourism in Sri Lanka.