Visa waiver tips

Visitors to Kenya will no longer need a visa to enter the East African nation starting in January, President William Ruto announced on Tuesday.

Dubai Business Events, part of the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism and the city’s official convention bureau, on Monday will announce its first-ever recognition program for Indian intermediaries for meetings, incentives, conferences and events business.

China is addressing the bottlenecks that have restricted outbound travel from the country. But the enthusiasm among Chinese travelers to visit the U.S. is diminishing, according to the latest survey from China Trading Desk, a marketing technology company.

China will now be entering into a reciprocal agreement with Thailand for permanent waiver of visa requirements for citizens of the two countries from March onwards.

Destinations worldwide have increasingly moved to lift visa requirements as part of their strategy to increase visitor numbers — visa processing delays are a major obstacle to the industry’s full recovery.

The outbound travel recovery in China is stuck at just over half of 2019 levels, but there’s at least one promising sign of future demand: Domestic tourism is 90% above 2019 levels.

Sri Lanka has finally announced its plans to roll out its global tourism marketing campaign urging tourists “You’ll Come Back For More,” marking the first such campaign since 2007.  

In a strategic move to jumpstart its tourism sector, China has declared temporary exemption from visa requirements for citizens from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia.

Thailand expects 3.4-3.5 million visitors from China this year, which is below its target, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said on Friday, despite rolling out a visa-free program to attract Chinese tourists.

After much speculation, Thailand finally announced on Tuesday that it would grant visa-free entry to Indian citizens from November 10 till May 2024.

Some countries, including the United States, have yet to make a full tourism recovery from the pandemic, and lengthy waits for visitor visas are one reason why. Several travel executives have argued that those long waits have hurt the ability to attract visitors.

The travel spending gap between outbound American travelers and inbound international travelers amounted to $802 million in September, the third month this year with a deficit for the U.S., according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. In May and June, the U.S. also experienced a spending a gap of $800 million.