Sri Lanka to issue free tourist visas for 35 countries to boost tourism
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Tourists will be given 30-day visas under a six-month pilot programme that will start from Oct 1.
PHOTO: REUTERS
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka’s Cabinet approved issuing free tourist visas to visitors from 35 countries, including China, India and Russia, a top official said on Aug 22, in an effort to boost tourism and help revive the country’s crisis-hit economy.
Tourists will be given 30-day visas under a six-month pilot programme that will start from Oct 1, said Cabinet spokesman and Transport Minister Bandula Gunawardana.
“The aim of the government is to transform Sri Lanka into a free-visa country, much like Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, to tap the benefits of a rapidly growing tourism industry,” Dr Gunawardana told reporters at a weekly Cabinet briefing.
The extensive list includes India, China, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Australia, Denmark, Poland, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and France.
The country of 22 million people, famed for its beaches, ancient temples and aromatic tea, saw its tourism industry pummelled, first by the Covid-19 pandemic, and then by a severe financial crisis in 2022 that saw mass-scale protests and shortages of essentials such as fuel.
But the tourism industry is reaping the benefits of a turnaround that began in 2023, with Sri Lanka clocking nearly two million arrivals by mid-August for the first time since 2019.
The island is expecting to close the year at 2.3 million arrivals.
India is the largest source of tourists, with 246,922 arrivals, followed by the UK with 123,992 arrivals, the latest data from the Sri Lanka Development Authority showed.
Sri Lanka earned US$1.5 billion (S$1.96 billion) from tourism in the first six months of 2024, up from US$875 million during the same period in 2023, according to the central bank. REUTERS
