Sri Lanka on Wednesday said it will throw out an existing on-arrival visa scheme for 76 countries in favour of an online application process, a move tourism operators criticised as an additional barrier to visitors. Currently, visitors from 78 nations are granted visas when they land on the Indian Ocean island nation. Now, only visitors from Singapore and the Maldives will have that privilege, since they offer it to Sri Lankan citizens.
Sri Lanka's Immigration and Emigration Department said the system would serve travellers efficiently while helping maintain national security. The government has yet to give an effective date for the programme, but it is expected in January. "With this system, travellers of business, tourists and transit can apply online without visiting our missions abroad," Immigration and Emigration Department Controller General Chulananda Perera told reporters. "We can reciprocate an on-arrival visa process if any other country wishes," he said.
Sri Lankans often have a hard time obtaining foreign visas, given the spate of visa fraud, political asylum cases and general emigration prompted by a quarter-century civil war that ended in May 2009. Emigration remains a big business - newspapers regularly carry ads promising help to obtain visas to first-world nations. In the other direction, tourist arrivals into Sri Lanka have been booming since the war's end with many visitors attracted by the relatively inexpensive cost and hassle-free travel.