Britain removes harsh references to Sri Lanka in updated travel advisory

The United Kingdom has updated its travel advisory for Sri Lanka with additional information on emergency medical numbers, road travel, and safety.

References to shortages of food, fuel, and medicine due to the country’s economic situation contained in the previous advisory have been removed from the updated advisory. Additionally, references to limitations in healthcare services, such as shortages of imported medicine and medical equipment due to the economic situation, have also been removed.

In a statement, the President’s Media Division stated that the Sri Lanka High Commission in London has made repeated representations to the British authorities on the need to remove these adverse references in the previous travel advisory to reflect the ground realities.

The United Kingdom is the third largest source of tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka, with 53,928 arrivals from January 1 to March 27 this year.

The revised travel advisory also comes after an open letter was issued by campaigners in both the UK and Sri Lanka in January calling on the UK government to revise its “overly harsh” travel advice on Sri Lanka. The signatories to the open letter, provided by a leading UK travel company, pointed out that the travel Advisory was “systematically undermining the travel industry in Sri Lanka.”