{"id":87251,"date":"2019-04-16T14:49:12","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87251"},"modified":"2019-04-16T14:49:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:49:12","slug":"sri-lanka-to-offer-free-visas-to-tourists-from-30-countries-including-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/16\/sri-lanka-to-offer-free-visas-to-tourists-from-30-countries-including-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka to offer free visas to tourists from 30 countries, including US"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>USA TODAY<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka aims to boost its tourism efforts by giving away free visas to travelers from more than 30 countries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The small island nation off southern India will offer the promotion starting May 1 to travelers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea,&nbsp;according to Lonely Planet&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Independent.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The average U.S. tourist stands to save between $20 and $40 in visa fees, Lonely Planet says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The free-visa period initially will&nbsp;run for six months to help bolster tourism during the off-peak season \u2013 the Yala monsoon runs from May to August \u2013&nbsp;but if successful, Sri Lanka may extend the free visas to tourists from other countries or make the arrangement permanent.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka saw 2.1 million tourists in 2017, according to the nation&#8217;s Tourism Development Authority. Tourism numbers have been on the upswing since the end of Sri Lanka&#8217;s civil war in 2009.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>USA TODAY Sri Lanka aims to boost its tourism efforts by giving away free visas to travelers from more than 30 countries.&nbsp; The small island nation off southern India will offer the promotion starting May 1 to travelers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}