Tea as Tourism

Sri Lanka Turns to Tea to Lure High-end Tourists

With its stunning views over Sri Lanka's rolling green tea hills, the Norwood Plantation Manager's bungalow was designed to compensate British tea planters for their lonely lives far away from home.

The plantation remains, but the bungalow has been refurbished and converted into a boutique hotel to woo high-spending tourists who want a few quiet days sampling the colonial tea estate life.

''We have had mostly British visitors,'' says Asela Wavita, manager for Tea Trails, a firm set up by Sri Lankan tea company Dilmah to manage the bungalows.

''I guess it's the concept, the British colonial feeling, that appeals to them -- they can experience what their ancestors enjoyed.''

Tea Trails has refurbished four former managers' bungalows set in well-kept gardens, deep in the hills that have produced Ceylon tea since the 19th century.

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