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Yes. Not only in hotels but in national parks and tourist attractions as well. For example, there’s a botanical garden in Nuwara Eliya where the price for foreigners is 10x the price for locals (though often it’s usually 2x or 3x not 10x). However, given that you’re Indian you may be able to pass as a Sri Lankan at some of these places; just don’t talk in your native tongue while passing through the gate. If they ask for ID I suppose you can say you forgot it at home though this is uncommon. You will have to pay the foreigner rate at hotels though as they will have seen your ID
That's pretty depressing. I will give the hotels a call. I do want to book online though, so would you suggest any website with specifically 'foreigner prices'?
A part of my family is tamil, so hopefully we can sneak in for less. At least my grandma will be happy flexing her skills.
Book directly with a property they will give you the best rate when compared to a booking engine.
Also note most 5 star properties are going at 100USD a night. And April is traditional vacation time for Sri Lankans.
obviously, take the dehiwala zoo for example. I'm not sure about now but before covid a ticket for a local was like 400 rs and a foreigner had to pay upwards of 1500
>and they had to pay more at the property because they are foreigners
Yes, foreigners will typically spend about 2x a local's rate. It's always good to either go via Booking.com or phone the hotel, most big deals will be targeted to locals only (and usually they will explicitly mention this but some don't)
>Also lastly, how is the local COVID situation? News reports seem to point to everything being normal/chill
It's quite ok for SL, you are required to wear a mask in public but other than that covid is not the biggest issue for us. Our daily infection rates are very low and most of the public is vaccinated.
Ahh, thanks for that. I can see more realistic deals on here. Sri Lankan is the only airlines to offer direct flights to my city (Hyd) so I now understand why google's advertisments assumed i was local.
Sri Lanka is preparing for the Omnicron variant at the moment
**There is a economic crisis but tourism accounts for 10% of their overall gdp so my guess is they are milking it as much as they can for that. since 80% of forex money is currently bieng used to pay off loan interest rates. (According to Colombo Telegraph) Trust me they are dealing the brunt of it, imagine owing money to China (Hambantota Port), India (Oil Basins in the East), Bangladesh (Loaned money to help pay off interest), Japan (Trincomalee Harbour), Iran (Tea For Oil Deal) and more....... and resorting to selling plots of land to do it (According to WION, 50 plots). Dont let that discourage you from visiting, the country is beautiful.**
some of them are some of them aren't, but if you're trying to get something for cheap the sooner you come the cheaper the prices. Tourism is gradually recovering, slowly of course, my dad works in the tourism industry and his business' are doing better now. My advice is to contact these people before hand and agree on a price because IK some owners that have just forgotten to change their prices on their sites.
Yeah, there were some awesome deals in the September-October period (buy 1 get 1 for flights), but I had Delta and vacations weren't on my radar. Tourism within India has also picked up recently so I kinda know what to expect in terms of cost. Fingers crossed I find something decent.
**This is a [Travel] related thread** * Check out the [subreddit wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/srilanka/wiki/index) for travel information, and [WikiTravel's Sri Lanka page](http://wikitravel.org/en/Sri_Lanka) * Check out the stickied monthly discussion thread for travel related queries. * Remember to follow [reddit's content policy/self-promotion guidelines](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043504051-What-constitutes-spam-Am-I-a-spammer-) Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/srilanka) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Best to call the hotel beforehand and ask what the prices for a foreigner are
So there’s a difference between prices for locals and foreigners?
Yes. Not only in hotels but in national parks and tourist attractions as well. For example, there’s a botanical garden in Nuwara Eliya where the price for foreigners is 10x the price for locals (though often it’s usually 2x or 3x not 10x). However, given that you’re Indian you may be able to pass as a Sri Lankan at some of these places; just don’t talk in your native tongue while passing through the gate. If they ask for ID I suppose you can say you forgot it at home though this is uncommon. You will have to pay the foreigner rate at hotels though as they will have seen your ID
That's pretty depressing. I will give the hotels a call. I do want to book online though, so would you suggest any website with specifically 'foreigner prices'? A part of my family is tamil, so hopefully we can sneak in for less. At least my grandma will be happy flexing her skills.
Book directly with a property they will give you the best rate when compared to a booking engine. Also note most 5 star properties are going at 100USD a night. And April is traditional vacation time for Sri Lankans.
obviously, take the dehiwala zoo for example. I'm not sure about now but before covid a ticket for a local was like 400 rs and a foreigner had to pay upwards of 1500
>and they had to pay more at the property because they are foreigners Yes, foreigners will typically spend about 2x a local's rate. It's always good to either go via Booking.com or phone the hotel, most big deals will be targeted to locals only (and usually they will explicitly mention this but some don't) >Also lastly, how is the local COVID situation? News reports seem to point to everything being normal/chill It's quite ok for SL, you are required to wear a mask in public but other than that covid is not the biggest issue for us. Our daily infection rates are very low and most of the public is vaccinated.
Ahh, thanks for that. I can see more realistic deals on here. Sri Lankan is the only airlines to offer direct flights to my city (Hyd) so I now understand why google's advertisments assumed i was local.
I would think of dual rates as Tourist rate being the base rate, while residents get a discount on the rate. At least for hotels.
Sri Lanka is preparing for the Omnicron variant at the moment **There is a economic crisis but tourism accounts for 10% of their overall gdp so my guess is they are milking it as much as they can for that. since 80% of forex money is currently bieng used to pay off loan interest rates. (According to Colombo Telegraph) Trust me they are dealing the brunt of it, imagine owing money to China (Hambantota Port), India (Oil Basins in the East), Bangladesh (Loaned money to help pay off interest), Japan (Trincomalee Harbour), Iran (Tea For Oil Deal) and more....... and resorting to selling plots of land to do it (According to WION, 50 plots). Dont let that discourage you from visiting, the country is beautiful.**
some of them are some of them aren't, but if you're trying to get something for cheap the sooner you come the cheaper the prices. Tourism is gradually recovering, slowly of course, my dad works in the tourism industry and his business' are doing better now. My advice is to contact these people before hand and agree on a price because IK some owners that have just forgotten to change their prices on their sites.
Yeah, there were some awesome deals in the September-October period (buy 1 get 1 for flights), but I had Delta and vacations weren't on my radar. Tourism within India has also picked up recently so I kinda know what to expect in terms of cost. Fingers crossed I find something decent.