Indians planning to visit Sri Lanka will no longer get their visas on arrival from September 30, with the government scraping the facility to foreigners, except visitors from Singapore and Maldives.
"Sri Lanka has decided to suspend the on arrival visa facility for all countries except Singapore and Maldives with effect from 30th of September 2010," Controller General of Immigration and Emigration W A C Perera said on Friday.
"Under the move tourists arriving to Sri Lanka from nearly 70 countries will be required to obtain visas from the department of immigration and emigration in Colombo or from the Sri Lankan missions abroad before their arrival in Sri Lanka," the Daily Mirror online quoted Perera as saying.
Sri Lanka, however, is willing to offer visas on arrival to citizens of any country if those countries also reciprocate in the same manner, Perera said.
So far only Singapore and the Maldives offers visas on arrival for Sri Lankan citizens.
Meanwhile, tourism industry officials said the move could affect the tourism industry in Sri Lanka as there maybe a drop in tourist arrivals to the country.
Since the 1970s, Colombo has granted foreign tourists a 30-day visa on arrival to promote tourism, which was badly affected by the three-decade long ethnic conflict.