The US Travel Association (USTA) used “Pow Wow” to unveil a plan to reform the “antiquated visa process” that it said often drives away potential international travelers to other countries. The heart of US Travel’s plan is to increase staffing, reduce visa interview wait times and expand the Visa Waiver Program.
“As a nation, we’re putting up a ‘keep out’ sign,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the USTA. “The United States imposes unnecessary barriers on international visitors, and that inhibits our economic growth. If we institute a smarter visa policy, we can create 1.3 million US jobs.”
Travelers around the world have criticized the US for long waits to get a visa and for a lack of access in some countries to US consular offices. Some potential tourists, including many Saudis, have had to travel across their country just to be interviewed for a visa.
Figures released by USTA show that while travel is the largest US industry export sector, the US has failed to keep pace with other parts of the world — such as Western Europe — as a travel destination in the past decade.
And — no surprise here — the top reasons for not visiting the US were the visa process and strict security measures, USTA said, referring to 2010 travelers’ surveys.
The visa logjam is not just exclusive to the Middle East. Getting a US visa can take as long as 145 days in Brazil and 120 days in China. In contrast, Britain takes an average of 12 days to process visas in Brazil and 11 days in China.
Ahmed Dahmash, director of international sales at Hilton Worldwide in Riyadh, says visas are getting easier to obtain in the Kingdom, and, as a result, he’s noticed an improvement in travel to the US.
“Since last year, the US became much more flexible than before with its visa rules, appointments and length of visa itself. The US has begun a new process in the Kingdom: a 5-year visa. This helps keep them loyal to the US destination. Everyone says it’s easier.”
The current climate of change couldn’t come at a better time, says Bosco Rodrigues, GSA manager at National Flight Services in Jeddah.
Rodrigues predicts that recent Mideast political unrest will likely send larger numbers of Saudi travelers to the US, which will make it all the more important that American tourist visas be processed quickly. “With the ‘Arab Spring’ effectively closing travel markets in Tunisia, Syria, and Egypt, Saudis are now looking at only two places to take their vacations: the United States and Malaysia.”
Julien Bonafous, director of international sales at Hilton Worldwide Sales in UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, agrees, saying his clients in the Gulf also are “looking for safe destinations for travel,” adding that “tour operators say there is an increase in demand to the US this year. We’re not asking them, they’re telling us: ‘The US market is picking up.’”
Delta’s Jimmy Eichelgruen, director of sales to Africa, Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, agrees that the ease in getting visas has resulted in an increase of travel to the US.
“Travel to the US is up from last year: There’s a 24 percent increase in number of people selling to overseas clients.
“It is getting a bit easier to get a US visa for travelers from the Middle East. People are now starting to get multiple entry visas, which is important,” says Eichelgruen. “Combine this with the fact the US is always a desirable destination, and that the visa process is quicker — all of this generates more traffic.
“I’m not saying that getting a visa is hassle free. One still has to go through all the steps,” he says. “If you get a single-entry visa, and do all the right things like not staying over your visit limit, the next time you apply for your visa it’s much easier.”
However, obtaining a multiple visa “helps to bring more tourists and businessmen to the US.”
Alaa Afifi, Marriott sales manager in Jordan, says the easing up of obtaining visas to the US has had an immediate effect, as they are seeing more travel to the US.
This trend led them to increase their delegation to “Pow Wow.” As with National Flight Services Manager Rodrigues, Afifi says events in the Middle East have resulted in tourists looking to travel outside the region. “People want to travel outside the Arab world, maybe due to the tensions there this year.”
The most important thing, says Afifi, is that “business to the US is increasing, and I can feel it. I deal with all the Jordan market: VIPs, airlines, aviation, travel agents, corporations — I can see an increase in them all.”
As for US travel destinations, all these travel experts agree on basically the same venues: “The top travel destinations for our Saudi clients,” says Hilton’s Dahmash, “are to New York, Florida (Orlando), Los Angeles, and Beverly Hills.”
He says Middle East travelers love to shop. “What better place to shop than the US?”
“The US has its natural attractions, plus Orlando, San Francisco, and New York,” says Delta’s Eichelgruen. “All Arabs like the US; the average guy in the street wants to come and see what the States are all about.
“The other good thing about Gulf tourists is that they spend a lot of money here. They stay several weeks, and average $500 per person daily. If you have a family of six, that’s $3,000 a day.”
But Eichelgruen cautions that a big problem is that no one from the US is traveling to the Middle East.
“Emirates (airlines) is now flying to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Qatar Airways to Washington, D.C., so there are more available seats flying to the US. However, passengers coming from the US to the Middle East are decreasing. They hear of a problem in Syria and Egypt, and think it’s the entire Middle East. They don’t know the difference between one country and the Middle East.”
Eichelgruen says this has resulted in a suspension of Delta flights from the US to Amman and Cairo. “We must have travel both ways. It’s not because Jordanians and Egyptians are not coming to the States, but rather Americans are nervous about traveling to the Middle East.”
