By Uditha Jayasinghe
COLOMBO (Reuters) -&nbsp;Sri&nbsp;Lanka's cabinet approved issuing&nbsp;free&nbsp;tourist&nbsp;visas to visitors from&nbsp;seven&nbsp;countries&nbsp;including China, India and Russia, a statement issued by the media ministry said on Tuesday, to&nbsp;boost&nbsp;tourism&nbsp;and help revive its crisis-hit economy.
Tourists from China, India, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia will be issued&nbsp;free&nbsp;visas till March 31, 2024 under a pilot programme, the statement detailing cabinet decisions said.
The scheme is part of attempts by&nbsp;Sri&nbsp;Lanka&nbsp;to&nbsp;boost&nbsp;tourism&nbsp;recovery and hit a target of five million arrivals by 2026, the statement added.
The country of 22 million people, famed for its beaches, ancient temples and aromatic tea, saw its&nbsp;tourism&nbsp;industry pummelled first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by a severe financial crisis last year that saw mass scale protests and shortages of essentials such as fuel.
But the&nbsp;tourism&nbsp;industry is seeing a turnaround in 2023 with&nbsp;Sri&nbsp;Lanka&nbsp;clocking a million arrivals by September, for the first time since 2019. The island is expecting to close the year at 1.5 million arrivals.
India is the largest source of&nbsp;tourists with 200,310 arrivals, followed by Russia with 132,300, latest data from the&nbsp;Sri&nbsp;Lanka&nbsp;Development Authority showed.
Sri&nbsp;Lanka&nbsp;earned $1.3 billion from&nbsp;tourism&nbsp;in the first eight months of 2023, up from $833 million dollars during the same period last year, according to the central bank.
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(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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Sri Lanka approves free tourist visa for seven countries to boost tourism