Brazil will mandate visitors from the U.S., Australia and Canada obtain an e-visa prior to entering the country starting January 10, 2024, according to Embratur, Brazil tourism’s board.
25.08.2023 - 13:56 / skift.com / Antony Blinken / Anthony Capuano / U.S.Travelassociation / Geoff Freeman / Dawit Habtemariam
U.S. visitor visa wait times remain over 400 days on average for first-time visa applicants from top inbound markets, according to the U.S. Travel Association.
Destinations and hotels will continue to be starved of many tourists and business travelers from India, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and 6 other countries because they have to wait 407 days on average to obtain an interview in order to get a visitor visa.
The ongoing backlog reinforces a Skift megatrend that 2023 will be a year of international travel bottlenecks. In 2023, the U.S. will lose out on 2.6 million and $7 billion in spending due to the visitor visa backlog, according to U.S. Travel.
The visa backlog has been a top concern for travel executives this year. A key point of emphasis has been the 400 day wait time. In January, Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano pointed out they were over 400 days and publicly called on the Biden Administration to take more action. Hilton CEO and U.S. Travel Association National Chair Chris Nasetta has said it is key issue for the industry.
In February, mayors and officials representing New York, Chicago and over 42 other American cities and counties signed a letter to the Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging immediate action to reduce visitor visa interview wait times.
To cut down the backlog, the State Department has implemented initiatives in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and India. Some include moving existing staff to those countries, waiving interview requirements and having them working weekends to interview applicants. In January, U.S. Travel said there was some reduction in wait times.
U.S. Travel pointed how other countries have taken better steps to ease visitation for tourists. The UK, for example, dropped its visitor visa requirement for Columbia.
U.S. Travel called on the Biden Administration to show more leadership on the issue. “The State Department has not yet done enough to solve this problem, and the vexing lack of progress is hindering the growth of the broader U.S. economy,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman.
While still high, visa interview wait times vary by embassy within each country, more visas have been issued than before the pandemic and processing has increased faster than expected over the last few months in key markets, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services Julie Stufft told Skift. “Since January, our India wait times have dropped 60 percent,” she said.
Looking at the State Department website, there does appear to be a drop for some countries compared to earlier in the year. An aspiring tourist would have to wait 332 days—nearly a year— for a visitor visa interview at the Mumbai U.S. Embassy on March 23, down from 700 days on February 10.
Brazil will mandate visitors from the U.S., Australia and Canada obtain an e-visa prior to entering the country starting January 10, 2024, according to Embratur, Brazil tourism’s board.
Destination DC will spend nearly $20 million on marketing in an upcoming advertising campaign as the city deals with a slow travel recovery.
In just the past few days, there have been two key moves that ease restrictions for travel from China to the U.S. Tourism officials have been clear that the lifting of these restrictions is critical to a full recovery –though key hurdles remain. On Thursday, China lifted pandemic-era group tour restrictions for the U.S. and other key markets. Before the lift, Chinese travel agencies were banned from selling outbound group or package travel to the U.S.
International inbound travel to the U.S. is projected to be at 63 percent and 75 percent of its pre-pandemic volume in 2022 and 2023, respectively, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s biannual forecast. At this rate, international travel won’t reach pre-pandemic levels until 2025.
The U.S. Travel Association has launched a website to highlight the negative impact of long visitor visa interview wait times—which now exceed an average of 400 days—is having on global travelers and U.S. businesses. Called USVisaDelays.com, the website lists stories of those affected, loss in industry spending, visitor wait times, impacted markets and a policy fact sheet.
Global average wait times for U.S. visitor visas dropped below 150 days in January for the first time since 2021, according to the U.S. Travel Association. They still, however, remain higher than 400 days for India, Brazil, Mexico and top inbound visa-requiring markets (excluding China).
The top boss of Marriott International used an on-stage interview on Thursday as a platform to call on the U.S. federal government to do more to cut the wait times for interviews for first-time visitor visa applicants, which he said was leading to lost revenue because of reduced U.S. inbound tourism.
International visitors spent $15.9 billion on travel to, and tourism-related activities within, the U.S. in November, up 57 percent year over year, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. That’s an improvement from November 2021, but it’s billions of dollars down from international visitor spending in pre-pandemic November 2019, which had $20 billion.
Ethiopia’s tourism sector has been hit hard in the last two years by Covid and a brutal civil war, with spending down by more than $2 billion. The tourist sites and infrastructure have been spared, but the sector doesn’t have the confidence of governments, travelers and tour group operators that the conflict is over and the country is a safe destination.
The number of international visitors to the U.S. reached 4.6 million in November, up 61 percent year over year, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. November’s volume represented 76 percent of pre-pandemic November 2019’s.
International inbound travelers spent nearly $163 billion on U.S. travel and tourism-related goods and services in 2022, up 96 percent from 2021, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office’s latest monthly data. On average, international travelers spent more than $445 million a day in 2022.
The U.S. will receive 62.8 million international visitors in 2023, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. That’s a 21.2 percent rise from 51.8 million in 2022, but it’s still below its 2019 level of 79.4 million.