“When will the foreigners come?”

This is the most common question from my Sri Lankan friends but the right query should be: "WHY the foreigners don't come here."

Due the economic crises sure, this is partially true, but the main reasons are the arrogance and ignorance of many subjects involved in tourism industry plus lack of marketing and business strategy. Why? There's a long list of issues.

The cost of the tourist visa is one of the most expensive in the world.

Visa extensions and residents visa are expensive and difficult to get, we can describe the immigration office with a few brutal words - a "legalised racket system" prospering thanks to "milking foreigners" and a cumbersome bureaucratic process required for every application.

One day a tuk-tuk driver told me: "We are poor, all foreigners are rich so we must get from you as much money we can, no matter how".

This is the normal attitude, "white faces" are a walking wallet for most of the people involved in the tourism industry, it’s a kind of racism, but foreigners never asked anything from the government, never damaged the community; in most of the cases they benefit the country, so why?

Consider the costly ticket price in some tourist spot in Sri Lanka?

The foreigners react with amazement when they realise the difference between the local price and tourist price which is 30 times more without having any "special service". How do you justify a 30/40 USD single entrance ticket for some tourist spots when the rest of the world offers more for less?

Long term investments:

How can a foreigner invest in property for only 49 per cent of the ownership? Also when he invests 100 per cent of the capital, the local partner gets the balance 51 per cent without doing anything.

It is unfair for a foreigner to be taxed 100 per cent on his investment. How can a foreigner buy a house if he doesn’t have the automatic visa for stay and living in his property?

How can you offer a senior citizen’s visa if the amount of the monthly pension required is so high that 50 per cent of the people in Europe don’t get such an amount? How can you attract the elderly asking huge investments if you can't offer a basic hospital service, comfortable transport and all the basic services similar to the rest of the world?

So before asking "WHY or WHEN" think about what Sri Lanka is doing to kill such investments by asking too much.

Especially now, after the COVID-19 pandemic, many tourist destinations in the world are working hard and seriously to attract business and tourism and in this market Sri Lanka is not the only destination.

This is the normal attitude, "white faces" are a walking wallet for most of the people involved in the tourism industry, it’s a kind of racism, but foreigners never asked anything from the government, never damaged the community; in most of the cases they benefit the country, so why?