JEDDAH, 5 January 2007 — The Australian government implemented a number of initiatives in 2006 that has helped ease the visa process for nationals of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Oman. “These include visa label-free arrangements for the nationals of five Gulf countries and an increase in the number of processing staff and contact lines for urgent cases,” Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Amanda Vanstone, said in a statement yesterday. “These two major procedures have been designed to facilitate the Gulf travelers obtain visas smoothly.”
Citizens of the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait can now obtain visas to travel to Australia without having a label placed in their passports. This can be done by visiting the website www.immi.gov.au or through a travel agent. “These initiatives have vastly improved client service and processing times for families traveling from the Gulf this year,” Vanstone added. The minister said that the validity period of tourist and business visas has been extended from one to two years for GCC nationals.
Most nationals from the GCC who have been issued a two-year visa on or after Dec. 11, 2006, can visit Australia as often as they want over that two-year period with only that visa.
Up to 70 percent of these people are frequent visitors making regular family holiday trips to Australia, and the validity extension will benefit an estimated 11,000 visitors from the Gulf every year. People wishing to make return trips within two years will not need to reapply for visa and we hope that will encourage people to visit Australia frequently.
