COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – Sri Lanka reopened to foreign tourists on Thursday after a nearly 10-month closure of the pandemic, which has entered the lucrative Indian Ocean island tourism industry.
Full operations were also resumed on Thursday at the island’s two international airports, hosting commercial flights.
Under the new protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19, tourists must be tested for the virus in their country 72 hours before the flight, when they arrive at the hotel in Sri Lanka and again seven days later. They must remain in a designated “travel bubble” in 14 tourist areas without interfering with the local population. About 180 hotels have been allocated for tourist accommodation.
The resumption of tourism follows a pilot project that began on December 26 in which 1,500 tourists from Ukraine visited Sri Lanka in such a travel bubble.
The government closed the country to tourists in March last year, when a virus outbreak broke out. International airports have been closed, with the exception of limited flights allowing Sri Lanka to return home.
Tourism is a vital economic sector for Sri Lanka, accounting for about 5% of its gross domestic product and directly employing 250,000 people and up to 3 million indirectly. Hotels, other companies and their employees have suffered disabling income losses.
Sri Lanka had fewer than 4,000 cases of coronavirus infection as of October, when groups focused on a garment factory and fish market in the capital, Colombo and its suburbs. As of Thursday, it has confirmed more than 55,000 cases with 274 deaths.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
– People traveling to Australia from most other countries on Friday will have to test negative for coronavirus before leaving. Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday that he had signed orders requiring international travelers to take a negative test within three days of leaving for Australia. All international passengers will also need to wear masks on their flights. “Success at home, the agonizing challenges abroad, the fact that we have new, more virulent strains appearing around the world – these are exactly what remind us of how we have managed to keep Australians safe,” Hunt told reporters in Melbourne. New Zealand and some Pacific island countries are exempt from the new rules.
– China is making some of the most difficult travel restrictions so far, as coronavirus cases are rising in several northern provinces ahead of the Lunar New Year travel race. Next month’s festival is the most important time of year for family reunions and is often the only time many migrant workers can return to their rural homes. However, anyone wishing to do so this year will need a negative virus test in the previous week and may face sometimes onerous restrictions, including quarantine, in some communities. The National Health Commission on Thursday reported an additional 126 cases of local transmission in the past 24 hours, the highest number, 68, in the northern province of Heilongjiang, part of the vast region formerly known as Manchuria. Commission spokesman Mi Feng also said that international experts visiting Wuhan had video conferences with Chinese experts as part of their work. The World Health Organization is in quarantine at the beginning of their journey to investigate the origins of the virus. Chinese officials have closely monitored this research, while promoting marginal theories that the virus may have originated abroad.
– Bangkok officials have decided to ease the coronavirus restrictions imposed earlier this month, as new cases in the city are on the decline. Pongsakorn Kwanmuang, a spokesman for the Bangkok metropolitan administration, said the city would allow the reopening of 13 categories of locations starting Friday. These include beauty salons, tattoo parlors, gyms and fitness centers. Bars and nightclubs, boxing stadiums, swimming pools, amusement parks, childcare centers and schools are among 13 other categories that must remain closed. Thailand saw a resurgence of coronavirus cases in December from migrant workers from neighboring Myanmar employed in seafood markets and factories in a province near Bangkok. A second group was found among the traveling gamblers who frequented the illegal gambling houses. Health authorities reported 142 new cases nationwide on Thursday, reaching 12,795, including 71 deaths.