As travellers increasingly seek experiences that complement the way they live, Walkers Tours is looking beyond conventional tourism to explore wellness, active lifestyles and sport as part of Sri Lanka's evolving visitor experience.

The way we travel is changing. For years, tourism was largely defined by destinations. Where are you going? Which hotel are you staying at? What are you going to see?

Today, there is another question becoming increasingly relevant: how do you want to feel and live while you are there?

For a growing number of travellers, holidays are no longer necessarily a departure from their lifestyle. Instead, they are becoming an extension of it. People who run at home want to run when they travel. Those who prioritise fitness do not necessarily want to abandon it for two weeks. Others travel specifically to hike, cycle, participate in sporting events, experience nature, discover wellness traditions or simply step away from the intensity of everyday life.

It is within this changing landscape that my conversation with Nalaka Amaratunga, Chief Executive Officer - Destination Management Sector / VP John Keells Group became particularly interesting.

Walkers Tours has been part of Sri Lanka's tourism industry for five decades. But longevity in any industry requires the ability to understand how people are changing.

And the traveller is undoubtedly changing.

The conversation with Nalaka reflected a broader direction for Walkers: moving beyond simply facilitating a visitor's journey through Sri Lanka towards understanding how wellness, sport and active living can become part of the experience of Sri Lanka itself.

Wellness Is Becoming a Lifestyle

Wellness has changed considerably over the last decade. It was once associated

predominantly with spas, treatments, retreats and perhaps a few days of relaxation. Today, wellness is far more personal. For one person, it may be meditation and recovery. For another, it is strength training. Someone else may find it through running, hiking, cycling,

swimming or simply being outdoors.

Increasingly, wellness is not something people occasionally do. It is how they choose to live. This creates an interesting opportunity for tourism. If people are building their everyday lives around movement, health and experiences, why should travel require them to abandon those priorities?

Instead, destinations can become places where those lifestyles are enhanced. Sri Lanka has a natural advantage here. Within a relatively compact island, visitors can move from beaches to mountains, forests, tea country and cities. The landscape lends itself naturally to

movement, exploration and outdoor experiences.

This means wellness does not necessarily need to be manufactured as a tourism product. Much of the foundation already exists. The opportunity is in connecting it.

Moving Beyond Conventional Tourism

For an established tourism company such as Walkers Tours, responding to this shift means thinking differently about what visitors increasingly want from a destination. The traditional traveller may have arrived with an itinerary built around sightseeing. The emerging lifestyle traveller may still want to see those places, but they may also want to experience them differently.

• They may want to walk. Run.
• Cycle.
• Hike.
• Train.

Participate in a sporting event. Experience local food and wellness traditions. Or build their holiday around a personal interest rather than around a conventional sightseeing itinerary.

This moves tourism from observation towards participation. And participation creates a very different relationship with a destination. You remember a place differently when you have physically experienced it.

Running through a landscape is different from seeing it through a vehicle window. Hiking through tea country creates a different memory from stopping briefly for a photograph. Participating in an endurance event creates an emotional connection to a destination that conventional sightseeing may not.

This is where lifestyle-based tourism becomes particularly powerful.

Walkers and the Wellness Conversation

One of the strongest ideas emerging from my conversation with Nalaka was that Walkers' involvement in wellness is not restricted to offering traditional wellness tourism. There is a broader ambition around active lifestyles.

That means looking at how the organisation can contribute towards healthier communities locally while simultaneously creating experiences that appeal to visitors who already

prioritise health, movement and sport. It also expands the idea of corporate wellness. When we discuss corporate wellness, the conversation usually begins inside the workplace: employee fitness, mental wellbeing, work life balance and healthier organisational cultures.

But corporations can influence wellness beyond their employees. They can create

opportunities for participation. They can support sporting ecosystems. They can invest in experiences that encourage people to move. They can help make active living more visible and accessible.

For a tourism company, that influence can extend even further because it can connect local participation with international visitors.

The Emergence of Walker Sports

This thinking is also reflected through the development of Walker Sports. Nalaka spoke about the intention to become actively involved in the sporting space, including areas such as trail running and exploring opportunities to bring international sporting events into Sri Lanka.

There are two ambitions behind that direction. The first is local: contributing towards a

healthier and more active community. The second is international: strengthening Sri Lanka's position as a destination for sporting and active lifestyle travel.

Those two ambitions complement each other. A strong local sporting culture makes a destination more credible for international sporting experiences. International events, in turn, create greater visibility, participation and aspiration locally.

The ecosystem begins feeding itself.

Sport as Part of Wellness

Sport is sometimes discussed separately from wellness. Perhaps it should not be. For most people, sport is one of the most practical ways of integrating wellness into everyday life.

Training provides structure. Competition provides a goal. Community provides accountability. Progress provides motivation.

A person preparing for a running event may train for several months. During that period, they may become more conscious of nutrition, recovery, sleep and overall physical health.

The event itself lasts perhaps a few hours. The lifestyle change surrounding it can last much longer. This is why sporting events have the potential to contribute to a broader culture of wellness.

They give people a reason to move. And when tourism becomes part of that experience, the opportunity becomes even greater.

The Visitor Who Travels Differently

Consider the endurance athlete who travels internationally for an event. That person is simultaneously an athlete and a tourist. They need accommodation, food, transport and local services. They may arrive several days before the event to acclimatise and remain afterwards to explore.

They may travel with a partner, family members, friends, coaches or supporters. The sporting event becomes the catalyst for a much larger travel experience. This is where lifestyle-based tourism becomes economically significant.

The visitor is not simply consuming a hotel room. They are participating in an ecosystem. And importantly, their reason for choosing one destination over another may have little to do with traditional tourism advertising.

The event itself may be the reason they come. Once they arrive, the country has the opportunity to show them everything else it offers.

Building the Ecosystem

Nalaka was clear that bringing international sporting events into Sri Lanka is not straightforward. There are organisers, international partners, sporting authorities, infrastructure requirements, logistics, safety, hospitality, transport, sponsorship and investment to consider.

It takes work. And importantly, someone has to be prepared to invest before the full opportunity becomes visible. Walkers' willingness to explore this space therefore matters.

Tourism companies understand travellers. Sporting organisations understand competition. Hotels understand hospitality. Corporates bring investment and participation.

Event organisers create the experience. Media creates visibility. Communities give events their atmosphere and identity. For sports and wellness tourism to grow sustainably, these groups cannot operate independently.

They have to become part of the same ecosystem.