RIYADH, 23 July — The US Embassy in Riyadh has announced that neither the embassy nor the consulate general in Jeddah will receive or forward to travel agencies any visa application except those relating to the immigration category.
Under the new regulation, which comes into force with immediate effect, all applicants between 12 and 70 should submit their documents in person between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Saturdays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
All applicants above 12 years will be interviewed by the consular officials. The subsequent issue of any visa will take five weeks or more.
In a related development, a reliable source from the travel trade told Arab News that a meeting of the ten-member US Visa Express Committee is being called today to brief the travel agents on these new regulations. The US Visa Express Service has already been suspended.
Musarrat Hussain, general manager of Minhal Travel Services, said there was a drop of more than 40 percent in Saudi tourist traffic to the US. This caused in a 30 percent drop in their revenues.
"Compared with 150 applications a day submitted last year, we are now processing an average of 15 applications a day this year," Hussain said.
He observed that the preferred destinations for Saudis are countries where they do not have to go through the visa hassle.
"Those who used to send visa applications by courier from Qassim and other cities throughout the Kingdom will now have to submit them in person during the two-hour period," he added.
