Apr 17, 2013 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's police have started to track foreign tourists "for their own safety" amid rising crime, a media report said.
Hotels and guest houses have been told to submit weekly reports fo their foreign guests to police as part of a new 'security plan for tourists,' including visa a passport details. "Tourists are important to our economy. This is to ensure their own safety," police spokesman Buddhika Siriwardena was quoted as saying by AFP a news agency. Sri Lanka's immigration authorities said earlier that they planned to give machines to hotel to swipe guests' passports so that foreigners could be tracked online by the state. "Some people may be put off because this looks like surveillance," a hotel executive, who declined to be named, was quoted as saying by AFP. The United Kingdom, the top Western source of tourists, and the second overall after India has asked Sri Lanka to bring to justice killers of British tourist, in which local politicians were involved and suspects are still free almost two years after the crime. Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals have grown sharply after the end of a 30-year war in 2009, with arrivals topping a million in 2012.