VISA Situation Playing spoilsport and adding to Travel Woes!

The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the travel, tourism and hospitality industry for over two years, and then, just as the world started to reopen, international travel has been hit by another bump! Issuance of Travel Visas is a task to reckon with today; from getting appointments, to processing times, situations fluctuate from being bad, to nightmarish. TT] spoke to the captains of the industry to understand the situation and their efforts to resolve the deadlock.

- Gurjit Singh Ahuja

Perhaps the consular P sections of embassies and visa processing agencies who had gone into deep hibernation did not fathom or visualise the task at hand once the world of unrestricted International travel reopened.

From downsizing of operations to losing key knowledge workers to other industries, it appears the Visa Processing Regime was caught totally unawares and unprepared for the unprecedented backlog of visa requests. This today translates into unavailability of visa appointment slots or slots available up to two years, down the line! Even if you are a lucky one whose application is accepted, actual processing time from two weeks to two months from acceptance to actual delivery of the stamped visa is common and not unheard of.

Uncertainty of the timelines combined with super expensive airfares, high cancellation charges and limited availability of airline seats are a major irritant and cause of concern causing a traffic jam of sorts both for the Inbound Travel into India and outbound travel from India. This translates into loss of business opportunity and revenue for an industry that has already suffered many hits below the belt thanks to the COVID-19 meltdown.

The current visa situation has caused a lot of disruption. Jyoti Mayal, President, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), shares, "Non issuance or limited issuance of visas has badly affected our businesses. We facilitate travel from the perspective of ticketing, touring, destination management, etc., the pre-requisite is the visa. No visa means no business of travel and we at TAAI have been sharing our sentiments on various platforms. For us, the travel trade professionals, the pandemic is still ON! Both inbound and Outbound travel fraternity and the travellers are struggling."