Indian Visa Campaign - Indian Visitors Visa

Indian visitor visa news – Visa-on-Arrival in more airports!

unnirnair — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:33:56 +0000

Writing positive stuff is always good; it makes one feel good…

So here I am, writing something good, something positive. The last two posts I did were rather negative ones; I had to, since the issues concerned were real and vital…

So, here’s good news for people visiting India from countries like Japan, Singapore, Finland, New Zealand etc, tourists from where are allowed visa on arrival in India. Within one year, four more airports in India, namely Goa, Kochi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, will have the visa on arrival facility. At present only the New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata airports have this facility.

The decision to extend the visa on arrival facility to Goa, Kochi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports was taken at an inter-ministerial committee meeting held recently under the chairmanship of Pulok Chatterjee, who is the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister.

Agreed that visitors to India from many other countries still have Visa-related woes that go unaddressed and unattended, but, for people from those countries that are accorded the Visa-on-Arrival facility, this definitely is good news. They can fly in to the airport of their choice…

So, next news let’s hope brings in more good tidings.

Another Visa issue; I feel bad writing about it…

unnirnair — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:01:43 +0000

To be honest, I don’t feel elated, being an Indian, writing about yet another visa issue that bugs an event that’s of international repute, an event that could make India proud. But write I must. Keeping mum is no solution.

The Formula One Indian Grand Prix, slated to take place on October 30th at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, has been bugged with all kinds of issues. Farmers were up in arms against issues pertaining to land acquisition and compensation; then there was this issue about the Indian Government wanting to tax a share of the teams’ earnings and now finally here comes the visa issue. The Times of India recently reported on how the Indian government’s apathetic approach in issuing visas to F1 team members- drivers, journalists et al- could make the entire thing go wrong.

Reports suggest that those getting ready to travel to Delhi (Noida is near Delhi) for the event next month are now in a fix as getting the visa has become a real big issue. Mercedes GP driver Nico Rosberg and ‘half of the Hispania Racing Team’, as per recent buzz, have got their visa applications rejected. Journalists are finding it hard as they would have to pay more for a journalist visa than for a regular tourist visa and that too when they are coming in to promote the whole thing. It’s all going tedious, as per those waiting in the line for the visas and FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) authorities reveal that if the government continues to take three weeks to process a visa application, upto 90 percent of F1 people won’t be attending the race.

With just about six weeks to go for the international event, which happens to be the first Formula One Grand Prix to take place on the Indian Subcontinent, would things be resolved and the visa issue sorted out? Let’s hope so.

The Great Indian Tourist Visa fiasco…

unnirnair — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 12:29:24 +0000

Sholto Ramsay has every reason to be irritated. He has been through it all. Sholto, who hails from Edinburgh and who has an office in Kerala, is a frequent visitor to India. But last time, it all went wrong; he couldn’t get his visa on time. He couldn’t make it to the Kerala Travel Mart, for which he had made plans and preparations. He’s now in India, making his team in Kerala work, salsa dance in between busy work schedules and to try to make them look at work from a different perspective. He wants his writers to make the most of their lives, he wants his tech team to learn from him and teach him in return, he wants his travel team to beat the heat and work wonders as they were wont to do. He walks along, munching a sandwich or drinking his favourite black coffee and keeping an eye on his team members here, most of whom are happy sitting glued to their seats and with eyes fixed on their monitors, typing out things as if in a trance.

Ask Sholto about visa and India, and he waxes indignant, “You can visit Sri Lanka, you can visit Pakistan, you can visit Ethiopia, you can visit anywhere in the Emirates, It’s so simple. You can get a tourist visa very easily: you get it delivered to you on arrival. But with India, it’s not so! With India, you have to pay 50 pounds for a tourist visa, wait for one week after sending in the application and you even must attach photos that are non-standard size ones”. He wonders whether all this is happening in the name of combating terrorism or some such thing, all of which can be done in a different way perhaps.

Says Sholto, “The Indian government should start to think about how this impacts tourism and to do something about it!. The Indian tourism industry is not as big as is usually thought, in fact it’s a relatively small one. For example more people visit Edinburgh, a city of 500,000, than visit the whole of India in a year! There is no question of people from Britain coming here and staying here, without ever thinking of going back. It’s not at all like that. The process should be made easy, so that you just need to spend less money and not go through all these tedious procedures”.

Anger justified indeed! Let’s hope people don’t tick off India from their itinerary due to such issues and opt to go visit countries with easier visa procedures, thereby incurring for India big losses.

Mark Scott, Sholto’s partner and a frequent India visitor himself, says, “The tourist visa costs India more money in lost revenue than it gains in visa revenue!! Sholto told me they actually send back visa requests because the standard passport photo is the wrong size. How crazy is that!!! So people go to other countries instead where we don’t need a visa. The hotels should put pressure on the government to get rid of the visa application thing. Places like Thailand and Sri Lanka don’t need them. So if you had to choose where would you go? Somewhere where you have to send your passport off and pay to get a visa? Or to a country who says we love tourist just come here and spend your money?”

Points to ponder indeed! And it’s high time India found answers to these questions and many more that visitors to India stop to ask. It’s high time something is done…

The Indian Tourist Visa Campaign

James Mcgillycuddy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:35:45 +0000

India is a fantastic tourist destination and year on year has seen growth, now that the global recession has hit and terrorism bombing, tourism is down for the first time. It is now imperative in today’s climate to reduce any barriers for tourist choosing another country over India.

Please follow this link to support our India Visitor Campaign

The main issue is the tourist / visitor visa that’s required, which seems incredibly outdated and unnecessary in today’s global market. For example travellers from the UK can go to 100′s of countries with out the need of filling out time consuming forms and paying for a Visa. When people decide on where to go, they will more likely choose a country where there is no need to get a visa before travelling. In today’s busy world people just don’t have the time or the will to waste a day for the sake of bureaucracy fill out forms / sit in embassies or worry about sending their passport in the post.

We have heard nightmare stories from potential travellers, both leisure and business about the difficulties of getting a visa, due to forms being incorrectly filled out, wrong payments, etc. If you have any stories please follow the link below and we will post them on this site.

Our goal now is to rally support form tourism businesses and travellers, to help put pressure on the Indian Government to change the way they demand a Visa and do it how most countries around the world do it. When you arrive in a country you fill out a card, the passport control stamps your passport and you have to leave the country within 120 to 180 days. See nice and simple, no need to fill out forms and pay money to get into a country that you are going to spend money in anyway.

The real negatives we have found with the visa system is:

Hotels find it difficult to get last minute deals sold to potential customers if they do not have a visa.
Travellers will choose other countries over India who do not demand a visa.
Visitors are put off by the cost and hassle of getting a visa

It’s very difficult on the real cost of how much business is being lost because of the visa, but one thing is for sure India is loosing out on tourism busniess whether its, leisure, business or medical.

Please follow this link to support our India Visitor Campaign