Sri Lanka rolls out free visa on arrival for UK tourists
Sri Lanka is to offer free visas on arrival to tourists from the UK and 30 other countries from next month.
The country’s tourist office is hoping to build on a good performance for March, when visitor numbers increased by 5%.
The free visa period will operate for six months from May 1.
Free visa entry will be granted to nationals of the UK, the EU, the US, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and New Zealand.
Tourism development minister John Amaratunga said: "We will start granting a six-month free visa period from 1 May for selected countries during our lean period to boost tourist arrivals," said tourism development minister.
"As the next step of this programme, we are planning on setting up a permanent system at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) to issue visa on-arrival, like in many other countries.
"We believe this would be a major breakthrough in attracting more visitors," the minister added.
The free-visa system may be expanded to include major market China and could be extended permanently depending on its success over the six-month period.
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