Category Archives: Visa

High Commissioner of India to UK Vikram Doraiswami has laid out steps that are being taken to ramp up capacity and address the difficulty in getting an Indian visa by travellers from Britain in a video message on Twitter.

VFS Global is organising a webinar on ‘How to make the most of the Visa At Your Doorstep (VAYD) service today at 11am. It will elaborate how the travel trade and customers can benefit from it. Register at  https://event.webinarjam.com/register/452/n7kngam6.

Zubin Karkaria, Founder & CEO, VFS Global, has said that they are still capable of processing 32 million applications eventoday as we did in 2019. “We are still at 60 per cent of 2019 numbers,” he added.

Atlys is organizing a webinar for the travel trade on how getting a visa is now easy, simple, fast and painless. The webinar on 19 September will highlight how Atlys automates entire visa functions and streamlines operations. In fact, one can get a UAE visa within two hours with Atlys. To register contact jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com +919650196532.

VFS Global has organised a webinar on Azerbaijan on 7th September at 12pm. The informative session with an esteemed panel of presenters will allow the travel trade to know all about Azerbaijan, how to connect & reach the country and apply for an eVISA through VFS Global. Register on: https://event.webinarjam.com/register/430/zyqvmb18.

The British High Commissioner to India, Alex Ellis, announced on Twitter that UK has started issuing priority and super priority visas to students from India. “There is a high demand and we recommend you apply for your visa as early as possible with the required documentation,” he said. 

In an effort to boost the tourism industry amid the economic crisis, the Sri Lankan government on Tuesday said the island nation has extended its multiple-entry tourist visa to five years Tourism Minister Harin Fernando said that Sri Lanka now offers one-year multiple entry visas, reports Xinhua news agency. The country also issues single entry visas with a six-month stay period. Fernandor said that the cabinet of ministers approved his proposal on Monday. “Cabinet agreed to extend five-year multiple-entry tourist visas for 35 countries to help boost repeat tourism in Sri Lanka. A tourist can stay in Sri Lanka for six months in one stretch with this scheme,” he said. The Minister said that the country had earlier offered a three-month “digital nomad” visa for tourists to attract foreigners engaged in remote work. The Minister said that tourism picked up in July and August after the anti-government protests gradually fizzled. He added that they expect 1 million tourists to arrive in Sri Lanka in 2022. “We expect $2 billion from tourism this year,” he said. –IANS

According to the latest UK Immigration Statistics, Indian nationals accounted for the highest proportion (28%) of Visitor visas granted. More than 258,000 Indian nationals received visit visas in the year ending June 2022 – a 630% increase compared to the previous year.

The US embassy has revealed that due to a backlog of applications, Indians will have to wait until 2024 to successfully book a visitor visa appointment. The US State Department website reveals the average waiting for a visa appointment in the US consulate at New Delhi is 522 days for visitor visas and 471 days for student visas. In Mumbai, it is 517 days and 10 days respectively.

Speaking about the current visa delays, Ajay Prakash, TAFI President, says, “Business has been hampered by the current visa challenges for almost every country. It is easier to look at an Asian destination. So while the Indian travel trade and the traveller is suffering, the destination is also suffering. So it is in everyone’s interest to get this back on track.”