Malaysia, Nepal promoting 2020 as year of tourism ahead of neighbours.

The current year kicks off as the year of free tourist visa and ‘Visit Us’ campaign as Malaysia and Thailand are already promoting 2020 as the ‘tourism year’. The Malaysian government just a couple of days back announced the Visit Malaysia 2020’ campaign, permitting a 15-day visa exemption for tourists, particularly from China and India. Following the suit, Nepal, too has launched their ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ campaign. Lighting the flame of unity, President Bidya Devi Bhandari officially launched Visit Nepal 2020 on January 1, 2020 with the slogan ‘Lifetime Experience’. Tourism ministers from India, China, Myanmar and Jamaica were present during the inauguration and extended their good wishes to Nepal for the grand success of the VN2020 campaign. Sri Lanka has decided to extend the free visa-on-arrival scheme till April 30th 2020 for the citizens of 48 countries, including India! The announcement was made by Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga who urged that Sri Lanka is trying to revive the tourism sector which was hit by the Easter Sunday bombings. Post that Sri Lanka suspended their visa-on-arrival scheme to citizens of 39 countries. As a means to recover the country’s tourism industry, Sri Lanka granted free visas to travellers from 49 countries, including India, for a period of six months from August 1. As the period comes to an end this month, the Immigration and Emigration Department lobbied the government to suspend the visa scheme, noting that there will be a loss of revenue. However, in the wake of getting a complete recovery, the Sri Lanka tourism industry voted for the continuation of free visa-on-arrival scheme.