News
Gratis visas likely to end; Govt. loses Rs. 4 billion
The Immigration and Emigration Department is to recommend to the Government that it stops the gratis visa granted to tourists since July this year, because of a loss of more than Rs 4 billion to State coffers without any obvious increase in visitors.
The department will present a report to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in this regard in the hope of working out a suitable system, an authoritative official source said.
Sri Lanka earlier introduced a “pilot project” to grant gratis visas to tourists from 39 countries in a bid to increase traffic. This was suspended temporarily owing to security concerns after the Easter Sunday bombings.
On August 1, it was reintroduced and expanded to 48 nations on a proposal from the Tourism Development Ministry. But the Immigration Department says the move did not bring the expected dividends and that it should have been done after a study to determine how best results could be achieved.
“There should have been an analysis to see if it will bring about the desired results and, if so, which countries it should be applied to based on who shows most interest,” the source said. “It was introduced without any such preparation, resulting in huge losses to the country.”
The department calculated the loss from the number of visitors who have arrived and the US$ 35 fee that has been waived. There is also a security concern in tourists from various nations landing at the Bandaranaike International Airport and getting their visas over the counter for free without background checks, the source explained.
“There is no advance assessment,” he warned. If the concession is extended up to January 31 next year as originally proposed, there will be further losses.
Among the countries benefiting from gratis visas are Thailand, European Union nations, Britain, USA, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, Switzerland and Cambodia. It was extended in August to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Philippines, Russia, China, India and England.