Sri Lankan government to offer free visa on arrival facility for foreigners shortly
State Minister for Foreign Affairs in Sri Lanka Wasantha Senanayake has reportedly said the government would soon be offering the ‘free visa on arrival’ facility to foreigners.
Senanayake has told the state owned English newspaper, the Daily News that this facility would be initially offered to nationals from EU countries and USA and UK.
The facility was earlier planned to be offered to EU, UK, USA, SAARC countries and a few other selected countries from May 1 but was put on hold following the Easter Sunday attacks.
Sri Lanka currently offers ‘on arrival visa’ only to citizens of Singapore, Nepal and the Maldives.
Earlier, the island provided on arrival visa to many other countries, similar to the policy introduced by Singapore, the Daily News has reported. However, that decision was halted eight years ago.
According to the Minister, the government will now offer this facility soon to attract more arrivals in the aftermath of Easter Sunday blasts and the Foreign Ministry was working on completely getting travel advisories removed.
“We spoke to Ambassadors based in Sri Lanka, first to tone done the advisories which have been done and now will talk to them again to completely remove them.”
Senanayake has added that Sri Lanka Embassies oversea too have been briefed to promote tourism in a more organized manner. “Each Embassy too has been given targets to promote tourism and a performance report would be called at the end of the year.”
OSL take:
The launching of free visa on arrival facility by the government of Sri Lanka would definitely woo foreign tourists as well as business travelers to the island nation. Given the relaxing of travel advisories issued by several countries in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks, foreigners are once again showing interest in visiting Sri Lanka. Also, the on-going development programmes in the tourism sector are continuing without hindrance in preparation for the anticipated increase in tourist arrivals. Hence, foreign businesses/investors could explore business opportunities to invest in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/11062019/Z_7 |