Viral video is misguiding: Airport and Aviation Services

Airport and Aviation Services today (13) said the viral video of a tourist who claimed Sri Lanka is not open for tourists is misleading and inaccurate.

Director (Operations), Airport Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Pvt Ltd Shehan Sumanasekare said the country is fully opened for tourists.

“In the viral video, the US tourist says he booked a taxi service via a third party website and it was not available. We cannot take responsibility for third party services. If that reservation was not available, he could have got a cab from one of the 10 travel counters located at the airport arrival lobby. There is a Sri Lanka Tourism counter and some counters operated by hotels, if he had no hotel reservation,” Mr. Sumanasekare said.

He said the process for a fully vaccinated tourist is very quick.

“There is no quarantining, no on-arrival PCR test. If you are fully vaccinated, you only need a PCR test done 72 hours prior to boarding,” he said.

The video of the tourist went viral on social media, where he claims he left for Istanbul from the same flight he arrived at in Sri Lanka. In the video the tourist, George said he stayed in Sri Lanka only for five hours.

“Sri Lanka is not officially open. On the same aircraft I landed, I went back 5 hours later and took my flight back to Istanbul. It took me 2-3 days to go to beautiful Sri Lanka and I did not see it. There are problems there. You guys need to open up or tell the world you are officially closed. I will go back only after you guys get your act together,” he said in the video clip.