Second class treatment for Lankans at hotels, and now airports also

That a few tourist hotels treat Sri Lankans as second- class citizens has been a long talked of malaise in the country’s tourism industry.

They are not allowed entry on one pretext or the other, while complaints to the authorities have often fallen on deaf ears. It is only when the hotels are empty that they welcome local tourists with open arms and 50 percent discounts.

What of those state sector top officials who speak so disparagingly of their own countrymen? Here is one instance where it is on record. It was an extraordinary meeting of the National Air Transport Facilitation Committee (NATFC) held on June 23 and chaired by the Civil Aviation Ministry Secretary.

This is what the note says about the official who looks down on his countrymen had to say on opening the hotels – and the country, to foreign tourists. He says, “The tourists could be seen as a responsible group who would be taken charge of by responsible authorities like the registered hotels and tour operators whereas Sri Lankans returning would need to be quarantined for 14 days to prevent social transmission when they go into the community…”

He said there was a reason for having locals quarantined under the watch of the state for 14 days, while the tourists would be treated in a different way.

Some of the other matters of discussion at the same meeting included:

• The Airport Authority Chairman saying the airports cannot be opened on August 1 2020 for tourists and other visitors. He said it would take a minimum of three to four weeks to set up the lab at BIA for PCR testing. He said there was a need to set up a facilitation committee to coordinate between SriLankan Airlines, the Ministries of Health, Civil Aviation, Immigration, Customs and the Army to ensure all arrangements flowed and procedures were regularised.

He further stated that a decision needed to be taken on whether arrivals would first be permitted from low risk countries and what should be done regarding high risk countries. He noted that some of the high-risk countries in Europe etc., were major tourism markets for Sri Lanka.

He also said currently the Health Ministry had a capacity to do only about 300 PCR tests a day at the airport and after the airport lab was built, about 1200 a day. He said the Health Ministry was only doing PCR tests for SriLankan Airlines flights and other carriers would be using private hospitals that had no labs at BIA and had a much smaller capacity for testing. Currently, it took six to eight hours to provide the test results.

He said taking into consideration the current health regulations which required all passengers to be disinfected, including PCR testing before they proceed to Immigration and Customs and thereafter the quarantine desk, they could only handle three flight arrivals a day. He said after each flight the entire terminal had to be disinfected and it took a minimum of five hours to clear 150 passengers under the current regulations. He said if the testing was carried out outside the airport they could handle seven flights a day and clear passengers out of the airport in three hours.

The Defence Ministry Secretary said the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) had agreed to fund the airport labs and that we could ask it to provide the latest PCR machines with new technology.

The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority's Chairperson said the SLTDA could buy some modern machines if required as this would help revive tourism sooner. She said two years ago when tourism was at an all-time high there were 75 flights a day. She said if we could have at least 15 flights a day it would be sufficient. In the first few months it would be mainly the Sri Lankan expats and their foreign spouses who would arrive.

In this context she said Germany and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had not mentioned Sri Lanka as a safe country to travel in their official travel advisory. She asked the Foreign Relations Ministry to take up this matter with the relevant countries as Sri Lanka had done extremely well in dealing with COVID-19.

The Civil Aviation Director General said as the competent authority under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) he had so far not informed international carriers and other authorities that the airport would open on August 1. He said therefore there would be no fallout from that end. It was only the SLTDA that had announced the airport opening on August 1.

The Airport Authority Chairman suggested the repatriation flights and the seafarer’s flights be sent to Mattala Airport. However, it was noted that if this was to happen lab and other facilities would also have to be set up in Mattala. In that case the BIA could be used exclusively for tourist arrivals. He said if the Health Ministry further relaxed the health regulations then the capacity for handling passengers could be increased.

The Foreign Relations Ministry's Director General said as at today there were more than 50,000 Sri Lankans waiting to return. He said there should be no discrimination between the Sri Lankan returnees and the tourists. He explained the plight of the Sri Lankan workers in West Asia and the Gulf region.