• Preliminary talks held with relevant stakeholders, but no final decision reached

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana   

The Department of Immigration and Emigration has proposed to link up with the tourist hotels in future as a practical means to track down information on foreign tourists visiting from seven countries that do not require a visa to enter or remain in Sri Lanka, the Daily Mirror learns.  

Presently it has become a challenging task for the immigration authorities to keep track of the tourists entering the country in large numbers to determine whether they return after their holiday intact or engaged in commercial purposes by overstaying their period and violating local immigration laws.   

A senior immigration official told the Daily Mirror that Sri Lanka has recognized seven countries that could send their tourists without a visa and as a result, their details could not be absorbed into the system at the immigration counters at airports during the entry.   

Sri Lanka recognized seven nationals including India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and Russia as visa-free countries following a Cabinet decision on October 24, 2023, to rebuild the tourism industry.   

The problem surfaced when a travel advisory was issued last week by the Embassy of the United States for its travellers in Arugam Bay, and the local authorities including the immigration officials were struggling to determine how many tourists, especially those who are from Israel and Russia, are remaining in the area.   

As preliminary investigations and surveys performed by the authorities a significant number of tourists from the mentioned two countries tend to remain in Sri Lanka and engage in various businesses violating immigration laws thus leading to numerous other socio-economic issues.   

Since a move by the previous Immigration chief to cancel the disembarkation card or the arrival card at the ports from May 1 has also disabled the officials at the counters from collecting and storing information about the arriving tourists.   

Thus, the immigration authorities propose to have all Tourist Board recognized hotels in the country linked up with the department so that the details of the checking-in and checking-out travellers could be recorded in future.   

A preliminary discussion regarding this matter was held months ago with the relevant stakeholders, but no final decision has been arrived at, the sources said.