FOREIGN TOURISTS to Sri Lanka DESERVE A BETTER DEAL!
By reading this article, please do not for a moment cancel your planned visit to the Paradise Island called Sri Lanka! My intention is to make authorities concerned put things right to make the tourists feel at home! I cite a few instances where foreign tourists have not been looked after the way they should have been.
While passing through Weligama, I thought I had the ‘rare’ opportunity of taking some pictures of the Stilt Fishermen, as I thought them to be unusual folks who have a unique method of fishing. While I was ferociously clicking away my camera, a man approached me from the front and tried to cover my camera with his hands, and when asked why he replied in broken English, “take photo, give money”! I surprised him by replying in Sinhala asking ‘why should I pay any money?’ and then the man realized I was not a foreigner but a local. To my dismay, I reckoned every tourist taking pictures of the stilt fishermen are charged something. Then there was something else came to light in this episode! Many of these stilt fishermen are in fact tourist ‘props’ as these people have found that they can make a better living posing for the cameras than by fishing. These types of phony fishermen are found in Weligama and some other areas whereas the genuine stilt fishermen, I hear are in the Mirissa area. I am not sure if they too pose for money.
Our Ministry of Tourism is doing everything possible to encourage tourism, which has become the country’s major source of income, but what we see is a complete lack of courtesy, understanding and encouragement for the tourist sector as a whole. Many of our citizens simply consider them as rich millionaires! How an average foreign tourist or a casual visitor for that matter is treated from the time he or she lands at Katunanayake Airport is simply disgusting. The moment a foreigner or a foreign tourist is seen a number of men in waiting, quickly approach them offering taxi service to any place to begin with. However, if the charge for a local passenger is around Rs.2000 to drop off in the city, the tourists are charged anything like US Dollars 50 which is equivalent to about Rs.7500. This happens to most foreigners who do not make prior arrangement for transport from the airport to wherever they want to go.
Their woe does not stop here. At each and every corner there are hangers-on who pester them with cheap local materials or services and if the innocent tourists get caught to their tricks, they virtually take them for a ride! In addition to paying five to ten times more for transport, even the charges levied officially at various places of interest prove as if the government wants to take ‘revenge’ on them for taking a tour in this Paradise Island - as they are ten to twenty times more than what we citizens have to pay for the same services.
I gather these are some examples of the prices charged by the government for local & foreign visitors at various places:
PLACE PER LOCAL ADULT PER FOREIGN ADULT
DEHIWELA ZOO Rs.100 Rs.2000
COLOMBO MUSEUM Rs.35/- Rs.600/-
INDEPENDENCE MEMORIAL MUSEUM Rs.10/- Rs.300/-
KANDY NATIONAL MUSEUM Rs.20/- Rs.500/-
DUTCH MUSEUM Rs.20/- Rs.500/-
ANURADAPURA FOLK MUSEUM Rs.20/- Rs.300/-
GALLE MUSEUM Rs.20/- Rs.300/-
PINNAWALA ELEPHANT ORPHANAGE Rs.20-100 Rs.3000/-
TEMPLE TOOTH RELIC KANDY Rs.20 to 100 Rs.2300/-
SIGIRIYA Rs.20/- to 100 Rs.4500/-
YALA Rs.20/- to 100 Rs.3000/-
There is no official explanation for these huge variations, but it is generally understood the prices are according to comparative income levels. However, how can we justify income range for say an Indian tourist with an American/European tourist whose income levels have big differences but as FOREIGNERS they all have to pay the same price? There is also justification that the extra money is needed to invest on more facilities for tourists, such as toilets and rain-shelters, my question is should there be such a huge difference between a local sight-seer and a foreigner? Are the facilities up to international standards?
Even places of worship are not spared, are they being charged for worshiping?! A boat man at the Nuwara Eliya Lake charges twenty times more if he comes to know someone is a foreigner, or at times if a Sri Lankan happens to have a better complexion than others!
We go to any part of the world and do not see different prices for their locals and foreigners but what are we trying to show the world by charging them such exorbitant prices? I have heard some of them even muttering to themselves that they are being charged very high? We could imagine the negative feed-back they must be providing in their respective countries!
One wonders whether the government wants to promote tourism or destroy it and these tourists can easily find better places to visit where there is more courtesy, reasonable prices and better security.