Visa Debacle: Fixing what ain’t broken

by Dr Sirimewan Dharmaratne,
former Senior Analyst, HMRC, UK

There is a famous saying ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sri Lanka seems to be the exception to this rule. This is no more laid bare than the current debacle with tourist visas. Most countries that want tourist dollars have visa free entry or a minimal fee. A visa is a means for controlling access and a fee act as a further deterrent. It is a form of a user fee that is designed to restrict entry. Therefore, if you want tourists to come to your country and spend money, simple economics says not to charge an entry fee.

Reciprocal Requirements

The justification seems to be centred around the fact that Lankans pay much higher fees to this company when they travel compared to what visitors pay to come to Sri Lanka. This justification alone typifies why Sri Lanka is where it is now. The underlying issues here is not what Sri Lankans have to pay when they travel abroad but what tourists have to pay when they come to Sri Lanka. This is what those who are actually making a living from the tourism is concerned about. Most developed countries have stringent visa requirements for citizens of less developed countries for obvious reasons. But those countries do not have reciprocal requirements. This is not because they don’t have pride, but because they need the money that tourism brings in. It makes good business sense.

They make more money by allowing well-off tourists to come freely and spend rather than by selling visas.

Elated by the recent surge in tourist arrivals, in the eyes of the government, Sri Lanka is now a ‘cannot do without’ destination. Therefore, the first response is to increase the price of everything, starting with a visa fee and let others have a piece of the pie as well. Having this overassessment about the value of the country has led to various forms of rip-offs, some of which have been widely circulated in social media. Further, one has only to check hotel rates and other accommodation to realise how the rates have gone up astronomically. Increase of visa fee appears to be following the same misguided thinking. The truth, however, is that Sri Lanka is considered a ‘cheap’ destination for an ‘exotic’ holiday. It does not particularly standout in any aspect, such as beaches, nature, wildlife or food compared to other similar destinations. As Sri Lankans, we all have a visceral value of the country, but in the eyes of tourists, it is one of the many destinations that they can spend their money on and not a place to be visited at any cost.

Demand for Travel

Access costs determined the demand for a destination. When there are competing destinations in terms of characteristics, a savvy, erudite traveller will naturally select a destination that has lower access cost. While there is some flexibility in certain access costs, such as airfares, visa costs are regarded as a waste that does not add anything to the value of a trip. Most Western tourists look at it in disdain because they believe, rightly or wrongly, developing nations should be facilitating their patronage and not restrict it. Therefore, the issue is not what Sri Lankans have to pay when they travel overseas, but what tourists have to pay when they come to Sri Lanka compared to other South Asian destinations.

Sri Lanka had a somewhat high US$50 visa, which most visitors acquiesced. According to SLTDA’s own departure survey, most visitors stay 21 days or less with most frequent length-of-stay being 14 or 21 days. Therefore, it is likely that in excess of 95% of the visitors would have obtained this visa. This option that was mysteriously excluded, appears to have been reinstated. However, what in fact is the correct fee is sketchy.

If the proposed service fees are added, then the actual cost to the visitor could be as high as $75, which is a 50% increase. This is where knowledge of some basic economics would have been helpful. If you raise the price of goods or service without a discernible increase in quality, the demand will go down.

May it be for eggs, bread, fuel or visas, this is one of the basic economic principles that actually work. On the other hand, there is evidence that while the visa fee is US$50, only US$40 is paid to the government with the remaining US$10 is paid to the company as a ‘service’ fee. If this is the case, then it is absolute madness. While the visitors don’t care how the money is divided, it is imbecilic to hand over US$10 from each visitor for a service that was done for free just a month ago. The thinking and reasoning behind this defeat any form of rationality and can only be attributed to a perfidious, self-serving motive.

Uniqueness and elasticity

How much the visits would go down depends on the amount of increase and availability of substitutes. These two together show how elastic the demand would be.

This is where Sri Lanka has no particular advantage compared to other countries in the region. There are plenty of close substitute destinations if tourists want to visit South East Asia, which offer visa free arrival or a minimal visa fee. Apart from that, for European tourists, a whole new market has opened up in Eastern Europe, Andalucía, Türkiye and in the former Soviet republics, where holidays are ridiculously cheap. Majority of these countries do not have visa requirements for Western European tourists, which is their target market.

Sri Lanka also does not have any ‘must see’ places, such as Machu Picchu, Great Wall or Angkor Wat. There is no compelling reason for a visitor to specifically select Sri Lanka that would justify the additional access cost. What is on offer is fairly prosaic, and comparable to many other countries that offer similar experiences.

The bottom line is despite the euphoria surrounding the new found tourism goldmine, Sri Lanka is easily substitutable and therefore the demand is likely to be very elastic. If this nonsensical visa fee continues to exist, then a significant reduction in visitation can be expected, especially those with families. The loss will not be to the tourists but to Sri Lanka.

Logic of Outsourcing

With Sri Lanka being a popular outsourcing destination, it is hard to comprehend that there is no firm that could perform this task. In fact, a local entity seems to have manage well up to 16 April, and through the peak of arrivals during the winter months. Why their service no longer suffices is a mystery. Further, according to reports, Sri Lankan IT professionals could have done and were doing the work for a fraction of the cost. What is the compelling reason to change the status quo? There have been no reports of major infringements or capacity issues. So why fix something that was not broken?

Length of Contract

This is another aspect of this arrangement that does not make any sense. Why get into a 16-year contract when the world of IT and AI is fast changing? There are already unmanned immigration counters in many airports. Most documents and applications are now machine processed. It is predicted that most back-office work will become redundant in the near future. This company need not make huge investment on infrastructure to take this additional work on for Sri Lanka. Such a large company should be able to easily absorb this work without significant additional investment. Therefore, there is no reason to ask or agree to a contract for the next 16 years! This is an egregious decision on the part of the government, or is there some other in-win agreement that does not benefit the country?

Money Trail

Another dubious aspect of this contract is how the visa revenue is transferred to Sri Lanka. Apparently, when visas were processed locally, the daily take was sent to the Treasury at the end of each day. With the new arrangement, it is understood that the daily revenue is sent to a Dubai account of the company and transferred to Sri Lanka two days later, sans service charges. Based on an average of 5,000 daily visitors and a US$50 visa fee, this means maintaining an account with a minimum daily balance of US$250,000 in an overseas bank using Sri Lankan visa fees, but that does not belong to Sri Lanka. This guaranteed money could be used for various reasons, apart from the interest that could accrue on a daily basis, such as for overnight lending. The bottom line is that other than the undeserved service fee, the company is placed to generate more income from the financial arrangement and contract that Sri Lanka has seemingly sleepwalked into.

Security

The justification that it is a global company which processes visas in many countries is irrelevant. In any country, by law, one has to first look for local contractors before looking overseas. There is no evidence this procedure has been followed. But the more compelling issue is national security. Although, it is now said that foreign nationals would not man visa counters, they will have access to vast amounts of information and data that could be used for the benefit of a foreign nation. Although visa issuance may be done by Sri Lankans, back-office staff could be selectively biased in forwarding applications. This could create problems for the Sri Lankan governments from friendly nations if they see a pattern of bias. These concerns have been already raised by countries that are crucial for Sri Lankan foreign relations.

Prognosis

This change does not pass any logic that could justify such a monumental change. It appears to have been done in an ad hoc manner without doing a proper economic analysis or any other analysis relating to viability, security or economic development. There will definitely be a drop in visitations as there won’t be free entry for citizens of any country, even those who enjoyed that benefit earlier. What is most likely to suffer is family visits, because a potential increase in access cost of $300 to an average family of four would be a significant shock.

If the process is more convoluted, which requires submitting further documentation other than just passport information, it will be a further deterrent. All this will have a negative impact on the visitation rates that are now envisaged by those who are actually keeping Sri Lanka tourism going. There will be a corresponding impact on the local economy.

Currently Sri Lanka only enjoys a measly 15% repeat visitors, most of whom may even not be bone fide tourists. This is compared to nearly 40% repeat visitors in a destination like Barbados, which has no visa requirement for European or North American tourists. How a country, which has absolutely nothing over Sri Lanka has achieved this feat needs to be understood. It is definitely not by making visitors unwelcomed at the port of entry. Sri Lanka needs to rethink where they are going with tourism in the future and not kill the proverbial ‘goose that lays the golden eggs.’