Sweden lifts travel advisory on Sri Lanka

In a fresh boost to tourism, Sweden has lifted the travel advisory on Sri Lanka. 

Effective 29 August, Sweden said: “Due to the improved security situation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs no longer advises against travel to Sri Lanka.”

Previously Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs advised against non-essential travel to Sri Lanka.

Recently the UK, France, Switzerland and Norway revised their travel advisories in favour of travel to Sri Lanka by their citizens.

In the first seven months of this year, there had been 3,307 Swedish tourists as against just 100 in the corresponding period of last year. Sweden is considered among top potential markets for Sri Lanka. In 2018 and 2019 there were 28,267 and 22,464 tourists respectively from Sweden.

As per the latest provisional data from the SLTDA, Sri Lanka welcomed a total of 35,381 travellers during the first 28 days of August, whilst pushing the cumulative number to 494,051 year-to-date.