Indians travelling to Sri Lanka advised to comply with new Covid protocols

PTI, Jan 14, 2023, 4:31 PM IST

Colombo: All Indian nationals travelling to Sri Lanka have been advised to follow the country’s revised Covid-19 protocols, the Indian High Commission here said on Saturday.

According to Sri Lanka’s new Covid-19 guidelines, all tourists travelling to the island nation are required to carry vaccination cards and unvaccinated travellers are required to carry a negative PCR report, obtained 72 hours prior to arrival in the country.

Earlier, on December 7, 2022 Sri Lanka had discontinued the mandatory requirement of producing the COVID-19 vaccination certificate for international travellers.

The regulation to produce a pre-boarding or on-arrival negative COVID-19 test (PCR/Rapid Antigen Test) (RAT) was also removed.

The revised Covid-19 guidelines have come into effect from Friday.

“Indian nationals visiting Sri Lanka are requested to comply with the latest Covid 19 guidelines”, an Indian High Commission statement said.

Sri Lanka has said it will keep a close watch on any new Covid-19 related developments in consultation with the health authorities.

In 2022, out of over 719,000 travellers arriving in Sri Lanka, 123,000 were Indian nationals. India was the top inbound market for the country.

A total of 91,372 tourists who travelled from Russia and 85,187 tourists who travelled from the UK were the next highest arrivals.

This marked a significant increase from the pandemic hit in 2021.

In 2021, the tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka were under 195,000.

Sri Lankan Tourism was also affected by adverse travel advisories issued by most countries in the context of the unprecedented economic crisis and the street protests last year which led to a change of government in the island nation.