Sri Lanka as a Luxury Getaway: How Did it Happen?
Sri Lanka is increasingly being portrayed as a luxury tourism destination, a travel narrative that started gaining traction post-2009. The island’s reputation as a travel destination ranges between two extremes — a place for luxury travel and a place for budget travel. Some people might even be shocked that Sri Lanka attracts high spending travelers, especially after last year’s media coverage of the island’s economic crisis that bombarded viewers with pictures of fuel queues, protests, and medicine shortages.
But luxury travel Sri Lanka does offer. This was of course not always the case. For many years, Sri Lanka was a place for backpackers and for nearly three decades, it was not exactly considered a desirable place to travel.
To chart the evolution of Sri Lanka as a luxury travel destination, I look at travel articles published by Vogue over a timespan of a century plus. Vogue because it is synonymous with selling glamor (well, once upon a time anyway) and luxury. An interesting story emerges when we look at these articles — starting with early 20th century colonial Orientalism to a subtler form of Orientalism in the 1960s and 70s, and finally to rave about luxury properties in the 2000s.
The 1900s: The most charming spot in India
Ceylon and the Singhalese, September 20, 1906
I believe the oldest article about Sri Lanka (or Ceylon as it was known at the time) in Vogue was published in 1906. Accuracy never informed Orientalism, and this article reeks of colonial-era racism. The writer begins by calling Ceylon the “most charming spot in India” and identifies all people of Sri Lanka as “Singhalese.” It gets worse, the writer thinks Sri Lankans are ugly (ouch) and they “are vile only in comparison with the attractive land where they dwell.” This writer says that Sri Lankans are unclean compared to the Japanese and very lazy because there is “no need to struggle for existence.” (!!!) Clearly, the writer did not see any paddy fields, tea and rubber estates, or shops during this trip. Colombo, of course, equals civilization and modernity because of the Grand Oriental Hotel and the Galle Face Hotel.
There are other observations too — the climate is ideal, the botanical gardens in Kandy are wonderful, and there are no famines like in India. The article ends with this sentiment:
“After a very pleasant sojourn in Ceylon, I left it deeply impressed with its beauty, and have set it down in my memory as the most attractive and wonderful jewel in England’s colonial crown.”
I’d hate to read a travel account of a place the writer did not find attractive.
Travel tip from the 1900s: Advisable to have a “native body-servant” when traveling in the tropics.
The 1920s: Golfing in the Empire
Teeing up in the Orient, March 15, 1925
We find the second article in Vogue nearly two decades after the publication of the first. The writer travels to Ceylon for a golfing trip and visits the golf links in Colombo, Kandy, and Nuwara Eliya. She is full of praise for the golf courses and weather. The pesky natives get in the way though. Apparently, a wise golfer must select the most scantily clad caddie because that means they do not have the opportunity to steal Silver Kings and floaters.
She makes this facile observation:
“…East has not laid its stamp on West half so much as the West has suavely imported there its own art of living and its more dynamic diversions, one of which is golf.”
Obviously, it was not the East that colonized the West.
The writer also thinks that “Orientals” are not suited for golf:
“Certainly, a game which hinges so much energy and personal precision could never appeal to the fatalistic Oriental.” Because golf requires “persistent devotion, resourcefulness, a wide vocabulary, and, above all, imagination.”
The 1960s: A rather Gothic island
In Ceylon: The normal way to remove a demon, June 1966
The Sixties. Many things have changed since the last time Vogue published an article about Sri Lanka. Some things have not changed though — for example, attitudes towards the East. This article has to be the strangest travel article about Sri Lanka I’ve read. It’s practically a Gothic short story with some fabulous fashion photographs. The photoshoot of course is beautiful — models posing against a backdrop of a paddy field while modeling the latest fashions.
And this photo spread is accompanied by an article that explores demonology in Sri Lanka. There’s something very The Village in the Jungle in this article. Leonard Woolf’s novel has influenced travel and news reports in Sri Lanka; it tends to be a constant.
In this article, just as in The Village in the Jungle, Sri Lanka is a mysterious land:
“It is the silence of disuse that creates ancient mysteries — and if mysteries are sought in Ceylon, it is to the people of the island that one must look. It was their ancestors who wrested the island from its original inhabitants — the Yakkas or Demon race, the descendants of whom still hold the island in unbreakable (though invisible) thralldom.”
The author has clearly confused fact with mythology.
The writer takes part in a symbolic ceremonial ritual and by the end of it, he too felt a “presence” i.e. something demonic, otherworldly.
For a less dramatic description of this symbolic ritual, refer to anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere’s extensive work on the topic.
This issue also has another fashion photoshoot titled Fashion for the pretty season which has models posing with Kandyan dancers and elephants, and against a backdrop of ancient architecture.
The 1970s: The quaint island
Want to get away from it all in an amusing, comfortable, extraordinary place? Try this…, January 1976
The article starts with the usual bland sentiments about how it’s difficult to define Ceylon and how it’s hard to comprehend the “natives.” Again, forget accuracy. Ceylon changed its name to Sri Lanka in 1972. Similar to the article written in 1906, the writer identifies all Sri Lankans as Sinhalese. Travel route is similar to the early part of the century too — Colombo, Kandy, and Nuwara Eliya.
In the closing paragraph, the writer states:
“The model colony of the Empire is now an overextended, whimsically governed welfare state.”
This is an uninformed way to describe the Sri Lanka of the 1960s and 70s, a time when the country started its early industrialization efforts and tried to achieve food self-sufficiency. Anyone who understands economic development will tell you these are the foundations of actual “development.” As for the “model colony,” let’s not even go there because a report published in 1948 by the United Nations described Sri Lanka as: “agricultural and industrially underdeveloped; low productivity and unavailability of resources relative to the country’s population hampered its economic development.”
2005 and after: The emergence of the luxury travel destination
In 2005, Vogue published an article titled Paradise regained and featured the luxury properties in Galle. This can be considered one of the earliest travel writing about Sri Lanka that positioned the island as a luxury getaway. Much had changed yet again in Sri Lanka. 2005 was the year following the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and there was also a ceasefire in the country. There was an increase in tourist arrivals during this time.
After 2009, Sri Lanka has come under the spotlight as a travel destination and is frequently included in top travel destination lists. Some recent articles in Vogue include:
- Surf, sambal, and safari: The insider’s guide to Sri Lanka
- Why is Sri Lanka becoming the most fashionable place to travel?
- Ceylon silver tips and temple-topped mountains: An insider’s guide to Sri Lanka’s tea country
Travel depictions about Sri Lanka have transformed from showing a backwater in the British Empire to a quaint little island to a damaged paradise with beautiful hotels and villas. They function as an example of how much a country’s national narrative and “nation brand” can change and evolve over decades.
