‘Smart Visas’ to Increase International Travel
If you’re planning on doing some international traveling, you will most likely find yourself dealing with the process of getting or using a visa. Fueled by the daunting task of filling out the proper paperwork and waiting for availability with no detail overlooked, the visa process can turn out to be a long and cumbersome procedure that may turn you off from traveling outside of the country.
But all that may change thanks to a policy called “Smart Visa.”
Smart Visas are new solutions to promote international tourism while providing a safe and secure process for the traveler. By utilizing advanced technology to gather more data that will quickly be shared across borders, Smart Visas are expected to help increase security and alleviate government spending while enhancing customer experience. With the same information being collected and shared with border controls, typical discrepancies and clerical errors found among applications with differing requirements can be avoided.
As the financial advantage of international tourism becomes noticeably beneficial to governments, (the industry is responsible for employing 98 million people worldwide according to the World Travel and Tourism Council), countries are turning to secure and convenient ways for people to travel among their country. And these measures seem to be paying off. Tourism to Turkey more than doubled recently with their policy of providing visas among visitor arrivals. A person can travel to Beijing, China for three days without a visa if he or she is coming from one of a select 45 countries, and Russia is promoting visa-free travel to and from the European Union. Countries like Australia and the United Arab Emirates have already begun to use electronic visas, making applying for one quick and easy. In the United States, a national travel and tourism policy has been developed where a significant increase has been made in international arrivals. This progress is due in part to the expansion of the visa waiver program to Taiwan and the decreased wait times for in-person interviews.
The push for this new visa policy came earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Hilton Worldwide and Marriott International teamed up to address the leaders of the global business and travel industry in hopes to promote the global action toward Smart Visa policies regionally by 2015 and globally by 2020.
“Smart governments are thinking about international travel and tourism as trade, and they are doing everything they can to remove barriers and be more strategic in addressing visas and other access issues that discourage people from traveling and doing business,” said Arne Sorenson, president and CEO, Marriott International. Both companies agreed on security being a top concern while allowing an easier way for travelers to “see the world and result in two billion world travelers in the next decade.”