Sri Lanka offers free tourist visas to boost tourism and economy

Sri Lanka's cabinet approved issuing free tourist visas to visitors from 35 countries including China, India and Russia, a top official said, to boost tourism and help revive its crisis-hit economy.

Tourists will be given 30-day visas under a six-month pilot programme that will start from Oct. 1, said Cabinet spokesman and Transport Minister Bandula Gunawardana on Thursday.

"The aim of the government is to transform Sri Lanka into a visa-free country, much like Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, to tap into the benefits of a rapidly growing tourism industry," Gunawardana told reporters on Thursday at a weekly cabinet briefing.

The extensive list includes India, China, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Australia, Denmark, Poland, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, and France.

Revival attempt of tourism

The country of 22 million people, famed for its beaches, ancient temples and aromatic tea, saw its tourism industry pummelled first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by a severe financial crisis in 2022 that saw mass-scale protests and shortages of essentials such as fuel.

But the tourism industry is reaping the benefits of a turnaround that began last year with Sri Lanka clocking nearly 2 million arrivals by mid-August, for the first time since 2019.

The island is expecting to close the year at 2.3 million arrivals.

India is the largest source of tourists with 246,922 arrivals, followed by the United Kingdom with 123,992, the latest data from the Sri Lanka Development Authority showed.

Sri Lanka earned $1.5 billion from tourism in the first six months of 2024, up from 875 million dollars during the same period last year, according to the central bank.