The official set of health guidelines to be adhered to during the tourism pilot project was issued on Tuesday and circulated to the travel agents just as each authority passes the ball and changes the rules in a flexible space of bringing down tourists to Sri Lanka. Tourism Ministry Secretary Siri Hettiarachchi told the Business [...]

Business Times

Health guidelines better late than never

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The official set of health guidelines to be adhered to during the tourism pilot project was issued on Tuesday and circulated to the travel agents just as each authority passes the ball and changes the rules in a flexible space of bringing down tourists to Sri Lanka.

Tourism Ministry Secretary Siri Hettiarachchi told the Business Times that the rules and regulations under the pilot project in which Ukranian nationals are brought down by former Sri Lankan ambassador to Russia and political heavyweight Udayanga Weeratunga were “flexible” and subject to change due to the “dynamic” nature of the said project.

“From time to time we change according to the requirement,” he noted adding that during discussions between travel agents and health authorities even the number of days was changed from 14 to seven and then the place for carrying out the PCR test from the airport to the hotel.

He noted that travel agencies had stated that since the large numbers of travellers will be having an uncomfortable experience on arrival when PCR testing is carried out at the airport it was requested to be allowed to carry it out at the hotels.

Mr. Hettiarachchi noted that they expect to entertain about 5000 Ukranians in the country during the pilot project and pointed out that the adjusted guidelines will be submitted by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority to the travel agencies engaged in this operations and other stakeholders.

Asked about the reason for the delay in submitting the necessary health guidelines prior to their arrival, the Secretary explained that initially the guidelines in the Minister’s letter sent out to the Chairperson and himself were following approvals obtained from the Health Ministry over the telephone. He said this was a regular practice when they had to speed up matters.

The Secretary also pointed out that though the date of the airport to open for commercial travellers has been mentioned as January 21 the official date is fixed for January 23.

Commenting on the incident at Yala where drivers were subjected to a 14 day quarantine, he noted that travel agencies were to blame since it was their task to inform the jeep owners and it is believed that these owners would not have passed down the message to the jeep drivers.

In fact, Mr. Hettiarachchi explained that under the regulations they could not use any other jeep drivers to carry out any further rides and only those that have already been involved in the project will be asked to come back.

Flying in Germans in lockdown
Sri Lanka is determined to bring down German tourists who are currently in a lockdown in their country that has now been extended till January 31.

Reports from Germany state that authorities there have extended travel restrictions on their residents in a lockdown that had been extended due to the increase in numbers of coronavirus deaths that reached 35,518, according to the Robert Koch Institute.

Authorities have taken these measures since partial lockdowns had not been possible to reduce the number of cases, reports stated. Moreover, Germany has confirmed the presence of the new variant of the COVID-19 since November that is said to spread rapidly. Sri Lanka imposed a ban on travel from the UK due to the new variant that emanated from there.

Tourism Ministry Secretary Siri Hettiarachchi said that though they had not yet decided the date of arrival of the German tourists numbering around 500 there had been requests from the German embassy and the German Chamber of Commerce that had been in touch with them to ascertain how tours could be planned for arrival in late January.

He noted however, that the tour has not been finalized yet and they are still going ahead with the process of finding a local tour agency to bring down the tourists.

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