Sri Lankan government to simplify tourism regulations to further boost the industry
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said the government of Sri Lanka is in the process of simplifying tourism regulations and taking several meaningful steps such as single window, relaxing red tape, issuing free visa on arrivals to promote the country’s tourism industry and investment climate.
The Prime Minister has made this statement at the Cinnamon Future Tourism summit in Colombo earlier this week.
Answering a question by CNN’s Richard Quest, the Prime Minister has said, “The government must ‘get out’ of meddling with the ‘tourism industry’ and should not have a lot of regulations.”
Popular CNN Correspondent and the host of Quest Means Business, Richard Quest was in Colombo to participate at the Cinnamon Future of Tourism summit.
The Prime Minister has said the government has taken steps to introduce some measures to boost industry while several other measures are being formulated.
“However, there is a bottleneck with regard to provincial level administration and this has to be addressed by bringing in new regulations through Parliament. In addition there are also unwanted tough regulations with regard to obtaining building approvals which are in the process of being reviewed. Some of the ongoing ‘AR’ and ‘FR’ approvals too should be removed. ”
According to Wickremesinghe, the private sector must look at offering more education options for the travel industry and the government will support this initiative by offering interest free loans.
“When tourism started in the 1960’s the industry was heavily dependent on the government and this focus should shift to the private sector even now.”
OSL take:
The government of Sri Lanka has paid much attention to the development of the country’s tourism industry. After suffering a setback following the Easter Sunday attacks in April, the country’s tourism industry has shown an impressive return to normalcy. Tourist arrivals to the country as well as foreign investments to the sector have seen a growth during the past few months. Sri Lanka continues to maintain the top slot as the destination of the year in several key global travel publications. All this has resulted in the expansion of business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism sector.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/27092019/Z_4 |