Applying for a US tourist visa is expensive, ‘discouraging visitors’
- Tourist visas can be expensive and confusing to apply for.
- The process may discourage some travelers from visiting the U.S.
- Visa policies try to balance economic and national security priorities.
It can be hard for international visitors to get permission to come to the U.S.
Onyi Apakama knows this firsthand. She’s a first-generation American born to two Nigerian immigrants, and much of her family is still living overseas.
A convoluted and expensive tourist visa application process means her relatives have missed major milestones with family here in the U.S.
“It was definitely a sad thing because it was (my cousin’s) younger sister,” Apakama said. “She wasn’t able to attend her sister’s wedding.”
For Americans, it can be easy to forget how complicated international travel can be depending on your passport.
U.S. passport holders can access 186 international destinations without applying for visas in advance according to the Henley Passport Index, meaning we almost never need to go through the hassle and expense of filling out extra paperwork or turning up at a country’s embassy to prove ourselves before a trip.
But many visitors coming to the U.S. face a process that’s much more arduous.
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According to Esra Calvert, around 40% of international visitors to the U.S. need to apply for a visa to enter. Calvert is the principal at Esra Calvert Consulting, which focuses on data in the tourism industry.
“There is paperwork you have to do online, and you wait for your appointment time,” she told USA TODAY. “When your appointment time comes, you go to the embassy for an interview. You have to show proof of finances, what your plans are, very basic pieces of information just for proof that you’re going on vacation or a business meeting.”
In Nigeria, Apakama said, it can also be harder to get a visa appointment if your family isn’t politically well-connected.
Those extra barriers sometimes discourage people from applying for visas at all – to say nothing of those whose applications are rejected. That means the U.S. is potentially missing out on a lot of tourist dollars that would otherwise be generated every year.
According to the Department of Commerce, tourism accounted for $1.9 trillion in economic output in 2019.
“There’s so many choices for travelers,” Calvert said. “If a traveler has to wait for a year,” just to get their visa interview, they’re going to go somewhere else for vacation.
Raoul Bianchi, a reader in political economy at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Department of Economics Policy and International Business said that tourist visa applications disproportionately make it harder for people to travel from the developing world.
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“The global north/global south division is very stark,” he said in an interview. “There is an enormous disparity between wealthy Westernized countries and sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central America and…
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