• Seeks 30-day visa as cancellations & non-arriving confirmations mount 

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry stakeholder organisations have written to President Ranil Wickremesinghe requesting the granting of a 30-day visa for tourists following mass cancellations caused by the temporary shutting down of the visa issuing platform.

“We have so many cancellations and so many confirmations that aren’t arriving,” the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) committee member and Connaissance De Ceylan (CDC) Events and Travels Private Limited Managing Director Imran Hassan, told The Daily Morning yesterday (14). “We have targeted to receive 2.3 million tourists. How can we achieve that?” Speaking further, Hassan claimed that while the SLAITO had spoken to the Tourism Ministry Secretary in this regard, the latter was, according to him, “clueless”. 

In this backdrop, stakeholder Associations such as the SLAITO, The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) and the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises in Tourism (ASMET) have sent a letter to the President requesting the granting of the 30-day visa for tourists. “Tourists aren’t going to stay for more than 30 days,” Hassan said. “Therefore, we need visas for them as otherwise it will damage our economy.”

The Daily Morning’s attempts to contact the Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism Somaratne Vidanapathirana proved futile.

“The Immigration and Emigration Department has been ineffective,” Hassan alleged. “It’s been about a week since the decision (Supreme Court [SC]) was made to go back to the Mobitel system; however why is it still not being implemented?”

However, it has been reported that practical difficulties including those relating to information technology have arisen when reverting back to the Mobitel system

It has been reported that the cancellations are a result of a recent SC interim order to suspend the new online visa processing scheme operated by an international consortium following an outsourcing agreement entered into by the Immigration and Emigration Department, and to instead revert to the previously used online visa system, which the Public Security Ministry, under which the Immigration and Emigration Department comes, has said is problematic. Before the outsourcing, Mobitel ran the electronic travel authorisation system 30 days double-entry tourists and business visa.

At present, visitors can only use the on arrival visa counter at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake and obtain visas via Lankan overseas diplomatic missions.

Multiple attempts to reach out to the Department of Immigration and Emigration, Controller General Harsha Illukpitiya proved futile.