SRI LANKA TO CHANGE VARIOUS VISA CATEGORIES FOR FOREIGNERS ENTERING COUNTRY VARIOUS REASONS AS MORE THAN 300,000 OUT OF 1.2 MILLION TOURISTS DURING 2013 WERE NOT ACTUALLY TOURISTS AND MOST FROM INDIA PAKISTAN MALDIVES AND BANGLADESH Steps are underway to further diversify and categorize visas issued to those who enter Sri Lanka for varied reasons, the Department of Immigration & Emigration official’s stated. More than 300,000 of the 1.2 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka this year were not actual tourists. Due to this reason the current visa’s issued under tourist visa, resident visa, business visa and My Green Home visa would be revised. A spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Emigration said that many who come to Sri Lanka from India, Pakistan, Maldives and Bangladesh have been known to engage in business activities here and they were not tourists. Further it has come to light that the Tourist Board had also added to the tourist arrival database those who enter Sri Lanka due to emergency landings and transit requirements. When contacted regarding the alleged discrepancies in the tourist arrival records, Tourist Board officials state that the calculations were done with the tourist data provided by the Department of Immigration and Emigration. They added that according to the data, in January more than 146,575 tourists had arrived in Sri Lanka.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 04:19:13 +0000
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