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Expanding the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) would bring increased economic opportunity to and improve national security in the United States while advancing U.S. public diplomacy around the world, said Roger J. Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.

Dow’s comments emerged from his testimony submitted today to the Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement.

“Since its creation in 1986, the VWP has been an invaluable instrument of U.S. national security and public diplomacy and is also critical to our nation’s economic health,” said Dow.

“It is difficult to exaggerate the benefits to the United States of reciprocal 90-day, visa-free travel with the 36 countries that currently qualify for visa waiver status,” Dow said.

The VWP program has provided its promised stimulus to the U.S. economy, Dow argues. In 2010, VWP countries were the largest source of inbound overseas travels to the United States, sending more than 17 million visitors or 65 percent of all visitors from overseas. While here, these visitors spent nearly $61 billion, supporting 433,000 American jobs along with $12 billion in payroll and generating $9 billion in tax revenues.

“The opportunities that would result from expanding the program to key emerging economies are staggering,” said Dow. “As the Subcommittee reviews the program, we urge you to reflect on these benefits to our foreign policy, homeland security and economy that comprised the original rationale for creating the Visa Waiver Program.”

U.S. Travel supports two pieces of legislation regarding the VWP currently before Congress: H.R. 959, introduced earlier this congressional session by Rep. Mike Quigley, and H.R. 3341, sponsored by Reps. Mazie Hirono and David Dreier.

Dow’s testimony was submitted in conjunction with the Dec. 7 committee hearing: “Visa Waiver Program Oversight: Risks and Benefits of the Program.”

Source: http://www.travelagentcentral.com

Visa fees for tourists heading to Japan’s three regions hit hardest by the March 11 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster are to be waived for five years.

Overseas visitors heading to Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures in Japan’s northeast will not have to pay visa fees from next week until November 2016 at the earliest.

The initiative, launched by the foreign ministry, aims to help attract visitors to the regions worst affected by the March 11 disaster and rebuild their tourism industries.

While 77,000 tourists visited the three regions during 2010, this year’s figures are significantly lower: tourism dropped nearly 88 per cent in Fukushima and 90 per cent in Iwate prefecture during the second quarter of this year alone, according to recent figures released by the Japan Tourism Agency.

Tourism in Tokyo also plummeted 71 per cent in Tokyo and 91 per cent in Yamanashi prefecture – home to the iconic Mount Fuji and 186 miles from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant – during the same period.

As part of the new visa fee waiver programme, visitors who present documents to verify their visit to the affected prefectures, including travel itineraries or transport tickets, will be exempt from paying fees, which cost around £24 (3,000 yen) for single use or £48 (6,000 yen) for multiple use.

Visitors from China, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia are among nations which are normally required to have visas before entry and will be eligible for the fee waiver programme.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the western Japan branch of a volunteer organisation has been arrested on suspicion of embezzling Y10.9 million (£86,972) that had been donated to victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Yoshiharu Tsuji, who was also the president of a company that operated supermarkets in and around Osaka, has admitted transferring the money to his personal bank account, Kyodo News reported.

Source: Telegraph

South Korea entry visa is now free for Vietnamese tourists from Ho Chi Minh City flying direct to Korea’s Jeju Island, tourist officials announced Monday in the city.

Mr. La Quoc Khanh, vice director of the city Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and Mr. Oh Chang-Hyeon, marketing director of the Jeju Tourism Organization, gave an information session Monday night to announce their cooperation result right after their working sitting in the day time.

Two chartered flights per week on Tuesdays and Saturdays contracted by Korea-based company Asia World Travel now link the two destinations, with visa free for Vietnamese tourists, said Mr. Oh Chang-Hyeon.

The chartered flights, which started over the weekend, are already fully booked for the HCM City-Jeju direction until December, said Mr. Vo Binh, Vietnam branch manager of Asia World Travel. Boeing aircraft with more than 140 seats are used for the chartered flights, he said.

A round trip package tour to Jeju now costs about US$600-620 depending on two or three nights, and on tour operators, he added.

Mr. Oh Chang-Hyeon is leading a Jeju tourism promotion mission visiting Vietnam on Oct. 14-18 to sound out more opportunities. Besides Ho Chi Minh City, they have come to the Mekong Delta in the south. They have also met with representatives of Vietnamese tour operators.

Mr. Khanh, vice director of the HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said the two sides have agreed on some other activities to be conducted to lure more Korean tourists to the city and more Vietnamese visitors to Korea, especially Jeju Island.

About 10 Korean journalists joined the Jeju mission to make reporting and shooting on Vietnam, said James Shin from the Jeju Tourism Organization.

In May this year, the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in cooperation with the Korean Cultural Centre in Vietnam launched a website for online votes for Ha Long Bay of Vietnam and Jeju Island to become one of the seven new World Natural Wonders.

Website www.jeju-halong.com is in three languages – Vietnamese, Korean and English – so that people in the two countries and others can easily vote for the two UNESCO-recognized natural heritage sites.

Switzerland-based organization New7Wonders is scheduled to announce the result of global voting for the seven new World Natural Wonders on November 11, 2011.

Source: http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn

The U.S. visa processing time may be shortened to within 30 days, said a U.S. tourism official on Monday.

“The U.S. Senate just introduced a legislation last week to bring the waiting time (for a visa) to under 30 days,” Roger Dow, president and CEO of U.S. Travel Association (USTA), told Xinhua at an annual China-U.S. tourism leadership summit on Big Island, Hawaii.

“Specifically they are looking at China and taking a look at the feasibility of not having a face-to-face interview,” Dow said.

Shao Qiwei, chairman of China’s National Tourism Administration, said China and the United States are working together to improve the efficiency of visa issuance.

Since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in 2007 that aimed to bring more customers to the U.S. tourism industry by facilitating group leisure travel from China to the United States and permit U.S. destinations to market themselves in China, the two countries have seen significant growth in this market, Shao said.

The three-day summit opening Monday is designed to build business through creating relationships and knowledge of both the Chinese and U.S. markets.

Members of USTA and the China National Tourism Association, including more than 70 regional tourism officials from the United States and China, attended the meeting.

Source: Xinhua

When it comes to relations between Ukraine and the European Union, one big issue in Kiev is the on-going controversy over EU travel visas.

Everyday Ukrainians line up outside the likes of the Polish and Czech embassies, hoping to get their hands on a bit of paper that gives them free movement in the Schengen zone. But many are hoping that one day all of that will change.

As part of an action plan with the European Union, Kiev is attempting to meet strict conditions for the lifting of EU visa requirements.

Outside the Czech embassy a man planning a third trip to Prague to visit family explained how proving the purpose of his visit was difficult the last time he applied.

“It is as if they thought I was going to stay there and work illegally,” he said.

Europe Without Barriers, an umbrella group of numerous NGOs, is helping to fight for an EU no-visa regime. It admits the government has work to do to improve border security and migration controls. However, it says theNGOs are also having to help tackle what it describes as stereotypical attitudes among some EU members.

“It is known that Ukraine has its supporters of visa liberalisation, but at the same time there are those who are afraid of it and those who are critical of it,” explained Iryna Sushko from Europe Without Barriers.

But before visas can be lifted the EU says real concerns about illegal migration, trafficking and false documents must be addressed.

It says Ukraine’s vast borders, especially to the east, are permeable, and trafficking and illegal migration from other countries pass through.

But is Brussels optimistic its conditions can be met?

“This is quite a comprehensive and complex situation. Ukraine has a lot to do in terms of implementing these requirements of the action plan. And therefore I think we should have this in mind. There have been some positive steps already taken,” said José Manuel Pinto Teixeira, EU Ambassador to Ukraine.

Whether those steps are enough remains to be seen though; a progress report from Brussels is due in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, local NGOs say they are monitoring attitudes and practices at EU embassies, saying the number of long-term and multi-entry visas are too low.

Seamus Kearney, reporting from Kiev for euronews says: “Many travellers also complain that success in obtaining an EU visa largely depends on each individual embassy – and they say the approach is far from uniform.”

However, the European Union says it has attempted to make the whole process more transparent, simpler and cheaper for Ukrainians. It also says the rate of visa refusals at EU embassies is now down to about four percent.

Among those dreaming of an end to the long wait for visas are foreign companies operating in Ukraine. Two employees from the logistics company GEFCO outlined the difficulties.

“Very often a truck that carries goods can remain idle for up to three weeks while the transport company waits to get a visa for its driver,” explained Igor Loskutov, the company’s Road Transport Coordinator.

Aleksandr Levchenko, Purchase and Quality Manager at GEFCO said: “Business is very dynamic and it rapidly changes, and the need to travel sometimes happens at the last minute.”

It is a message Ukrainian politicians are only too aware of, as they continue to try to boost border security with practical and financial help from Brussels.

Source: Euronews

AFGHANS hoping to embark on a grand tour of Europe, or any other continent in fact, are likely to find their wanderlust curtailed by immigration officials. According to an index compiled annually by Henley & Partners, a law firm, natives of Kabul, Baghdad and Mogadishu are required to fill in visa applications for more countries than anyone else. Scandinavians and Finns, by contrast, can travel to 173 countries or territories (out of a possible 223) without the need to fill in forms with curious questions dreamt up by bureaucrats.

Source: The Economist

European Union Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has defended visa free travel and immigration movements as beneficial to the bloc.

The Polish PAP agency quotes Malmstroem saying Monday that the union must receive immigrants if it wants to maintain its high living standards and compete in the world.

She told a meeting of EU asylum experts that free movement of people and goods is the basis for the EU and if the process is well managed, migration brings benefits.

Her comments follows calls by some member states for reintroduction of border controls within the visa free Schengen zone in the face of an immigration wave from North Africa. Last week Denmark boosted its border controls.

Source: Business Week

Collected by Vietnam visa

Romania and Bulgaria need to do more to overcome crime and corruption before joining the Schengen zone, which allows passport-free travel, the European Union Justice and Home Affairs Ministers Council decided today.

The council will reconsider the two Black Sea countries’ bids in September, after the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, releases its next report on efforts to fight graft and organized crime, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said. The decision came a day after the European Parliament recommended the two countries’ applications.

“I hope the commission’s report will contribute to a positive decision in September,” Tsvetanov told reporters today in Luxembourg. “We have covered all the Schengen membership criteria.”

Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007, aspire to join eight other former communist countries that are already Schengen members. Their bids coincide with discussions in France and Denmark to reintroduce passport checks at their borders on concern about an influx of North African migrants through Italy.

Countries hoping to join in the Schengen system, named for the Luxembourg village where the treaty allowing border-free travel was signed in 1985, need the unanimous endorsement of existing members, based on an assessment by the commission.

The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, voted 487 to 77 in favor of the Bulgarian and Romanian applications before passing the recommendation on to the ministerial council. The assembly urged Bulgaria “to take additional measures,” including a special action plan with Greece and Turkey, to cope with a possible surge in migration pressure.

“Illegal migration makes Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece one of the EU’s most sensitive external border areas,” the assembly said yesterday.

The two former Soviet-bloc countries spent 1.16 billion euros ($1.69 billion) to beef up their border police and equip them with patrol boats, helicopters, scanners and night-vision cameras to ensure the security of borders with Turkey, Serbia, Moldova and Ukraine and a stretch of the Black Sea coast.

Source: Bloomberg

Travelers can easily apply online  for tourist visa to Vietnam at http://www.vietnam-visa.com/.

Russia and the United States will soon agree on three-year multiple entry visas, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle said on Friday.

At their meeting on Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans to liberalize visa restrictions for businessmen and tourists traveling between the two countries. Under the new agreement, eligible business travelers and tourists would be issued visas valid for 36 months at a unified and reciprocal fee.

“I think that in two months maximum we will sign an agreement to issue new multiple entry visas for three years,” Beyrle said in Russian during an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station. “The presidents instructed to complete negotiations on the issue, that’s why I expect the agreement to be ready by summer, maximum by fall.”

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed scrapping visa restrictions between the two countries altogether during a meeting with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Moscow in March.

Source: RIAN

Foreign visitors can easily apply for visa Vietnam 3 months multiple entry at http://www.vietnam-visa.com/.

Some Iranian students may seek two-year, multiple-entry U.S. visas, the State Department said on Friday, giving them greater freedom to travel to the United States in a gesture to improve people-to-people ties.

The step is the latest in a series by President Barack Obama’s administration to reach out to the Iranian people and, in particular, to young Iranians despite the long enmity between the two countries.

Students from Iran, which the United States accuses of seeking nuclear weapons, sponsoring terrorism and brutally repressing its people, previously were eligible only for three-month, single-entry visas.

The new guidelines apply to Iranians and their dependents applying to study in “nonsensitive, nontechnical fields” — those that would not contribute to Iran’s nuclear, missile or other weapons-related activities, a U.S. official said.

Under the revised policy, the visas could be valid for two years and allow Iranian students to come and go as often as they wished in that period without applying for a new visa.

Whether they may actually enter the United States and exactly how long they may stay is decided by immigration officers at their port of entry, U.S. officials said.

In a video address, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear the U.S. gesture aimed to reach out to young Iranians, many of whom turned out in mass protests against the disputed 2009 reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Those protests, the biggest challenge to the Islamic state since the 1979 revolution that ended the authoritarian rule of the Shah of Iran, were crushed by Iranian security forces who jailed scores of demonstrators.

“We want more dialogue and more exchange with those of you who are shaping Iran’s future,” Clinton said in the message, which the State Department said was posted on Youtube in both English and Farsi.

“Because as long as the Iranian government continues to stifle your potential, we will stand with you,” she added. “We will continue to look for new ways to fuel more opportunities for real change in Iran.”

One U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the visa change aimed to make good on the administration’s pledge of seeking to engage ordinary Iranians.

Obama’s efforts to persuade Iran to cease its suspected pursuit of nuclear arms have so far failed and he has led a push to tighten U.S. and international sanctions on Tehran.

Iran says its nuclear program is to generate electricity, not produce weapons.

In the latest of his annual “Nowruz” messages to mark the Persian new year, Obama on March 20 accused Iran of a two-year “campaign of intimidation and abuse” against its own people.

“These choices do not demonstrate strength; they show fear,” he said, aiming his message at young Iranians. “Though times may seem dark, I want you to know that I am with you.”

Source: Reuters

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