Sri Lanka’s Tourism Minister appoints aviation committee to ensure entry/exit rules
Sri Lanka’s Tourism and Aviation Minister Prasanna Ranatunga has reportedly appointed a five-member working committee to ensure smoother arrangements when revising entry and exit rules to the country due to Covid-19.
According to reports, the members of the committee are Sri Lanka’s Tourism and Aviation Ministry Secretary S. Hettiarachchi, Aviation State Ministry Secretary Madhawa Devasurendra, Civil Aviation Authority (CAASL) Director-General Capt. Themiya Abeywickrama, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Director-General Dhammika Wijayasinghe, SLTDA Advisor Nimesh Herath, CAASL Director Rayhan Wanniappa, and CAASL Senior Civil Aviation Inspector Dr. Bimal Dias.
The committee is tasked with performing a logical and timely analysis before passengers from a particular country are restricted from arriving and to streamline the mechanism to minimise disruption to the tourism and aviation industries as well as to passengers, local media reports stated.
Following the third wave of Covid-19, the CAASL has imposed travel restrictions on India, Vietnam, South Africa, and South American countries as well as those with a travel history to any of these countries, even for transit purposes, within the past 14 days are not allowed to enter Sri Lanka, media reports further stated.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is focussed on returning to normalcy after facing the impact of the global Covid 19 pandemic. The tourism industry was one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the country when Covid 19 brought about global travel restrictions. However, Sri Lanka started to witness the arrival of foreign travellers after the country reopened its borders in January this year. Sri Lanka’s tourism authorities are engaged in global promotional campaigns as well as building Colombo as a tourism hub in the South Asian region. All this has resulted in the expansion of business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry with global hospitality brands showing interest in entering the country. Foreign businesses/investors could therefore explore business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s tourism industry.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20210614/Z_5 |