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The Australian owner of one of the world’s most exclusive hotels was given temporary permission to return to his adopted Sri Lankan homeland yesterday after being barred in a spat over the national flag.
Geoffrey Dobbs, who is also the organiser of an international literary festival in the tourist city of Galle, was initially turned back at Colombo airport for the second time in five days.
But an immigration official said that he had been granted a one-month temporary visa, only minutes before he was due to be flown back to Thailand on a Sri Lankan Airlines flight.
“He is being given a one-month visa to enter the country,” U G Udowita, the head of immigration at Colombo airport, said.
“This will give him time to sort out his paper work,” Udowita added, without elaborating.
Speaking from the airport, Dobbs confirmed that he had been told he could enter the country.
“I have just been told that I can go (into the country),” Dobbs said in brief comments as he prepared to leave the transit area.
Provincial governor Kumari Balasuriya said earlier yesterday that Dobbs had been blacklisted after flying four flags — which each feature the image of a mythical lion — upside down and near her home in Galle just before last month’s Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka.
“He is a very undesirable person and we have decided to blacklist him and prevent him from
entering the country,” she said.
Balasuriya said that Dobbs had deliberately flown the flags upside down after local workmen had accidentally inverted an Australian flag.
The British-born Dobbs runs four luxury hotels in the Galle region where some rooms cost more than $2,000 a night.
His portfolio includes the private Taprobane Island, whose guests have included pop stars Sting and Kylie Minogue. It has been named one of the world’s 50 most romantic locations by Conde Nast Traveller magazine.
The Sri Lankan opposition has said the move to bar Dobbs is part of a strategy by the authorities to seize control of his money-spinning luxury hotels, a charge denied by Balasuriya.
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