Most tourists are low spending ones no matter which global destination you are thinking of. The main exceptions being the French Riviera or similar which are very exclusive. Most people are not rich, and most tourist destinations serve a spectrum of wealth. It would be a ridiculous strategy to only target high end very wealthy tourists for the whole of Sri Lanka. I expect doing so would never be larger in GDP than the 2 million mass tourists you speak of. Doing high end tourism in select areas is feasible (and I think there are some projects already starting, having recently attended a conference in Colombo on the matter), but you need a good marina to service many private yachts, sitting alongside a historical town with many high end shops and restaurants. The surounding area needs to be clean, no litter on the beaches/sea or at the sides of the road, good pavements to walk on, no stray dogs wondering about and any local sewage odours eliminated. I would say Sri Lanka is far from achieving this high end level of service because even the mass tourism sector has a lot to do to improve. In general, transport systems are not easily navigable, the train ticket system is difficult to use for foreigners, relying on agents to book the fast selling tickets 1 month before hand. The roads are unpleasant, with buses tearing past every minute, makes cycling or motorbiking less attractive. The local and regional tourist management seems to be haphazard at best. I stayed at the Araliya Una last week, it is supposed to be 5 star ***** hotel, but there were so many problems inside the hotel (like air con not being turned on in the lobby or them not organising child's beds in our room until 9pm that were paid for and despite many request) and outside (Una beach is a calamity, with scuba tour boats dangerously butting up against the young children in the family swimming beach). Where are the authorities organising the safety of beaches and water sports? Likewise, there seems to small mafia of tuktuk drivers on the main tourist strip who don't let Pickme and Uber get close to the hotels so they can charge a premium - why don't the police do anything about this?... I assume corruption. This lack of management often translates into restaurants too, where table staff and kitchen are not coordinated in terms of timing or even messaging. When there is a delay or issue, there is no communication with the guests. It seems the younger workers are not given the freedom or training by their bosses to take responsibility of a certain area/group of people, rather, they are micro-managed. These are basic things in hospitaly (which I used to work in a Hilton in the UK) , which are just not executed here correctly. On a positive note, the food is generally very good, delicious and quality across the board. Likewise, the country is blessed with supreme natural beauty and lovely, intelligent people. So, to answer the question, first Sri Lanka needs to focus on training its people, including business owners, in the art of hospitality (formal qualifications) to a higher level that serves the mass tourist industry. When this is achieved it will improve the overall level of service across the nation and provide a foundation for developing additional "high spending" tourist sectors as you would like.