SMOOTHING out visa policies for inbound tourists could pave the way for up to 2.6 million additional jobs by 2016, 57 million more inbound travellers and an extra US$89 billion in international tourism receipts for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies.
These findings are presented in The Impact of Visa Facilitation in APEC Economies study jointly produced by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
According to the report, although countries have successfully collaborated and improved visa policies regionally, 21 per cent of expected arrivals to the region between 2014 and 2016 will still need to obtain a traditional visa.
The following have been singled out as areas to work on: the delivery of information, facilitating current processes to obtain visas, differentiated treatment to facilitate tourist travel, instituting eVisa programmes and establishing regional agreements for visa facilitation.
Addressing the APEC High Level Policy Dialogue on Travel Facilitation, UNWTO secretary-general, Taleb Rifai, said that “placing visa facilitation as a national priority can translate into significant socio-economic benefits in terms of income and jobs generated by the growth of tourism demand”.
“APEC has been a leading organisation in terms of regional integration and we believe that visa facilitation can contribute significantly to advance APEC’s objectives and the balanced growth of its economies,” he shared.
Indonesia’s minister of tourism and creative economy and host of the meeting, Mari Elka Pangestu, said: “The challenge now is to establish cooperation between officials working in tourism, finance, customs, immigration, security, transportation and airport authorities which are in different working groups.
“In 2013, through this High Level Policy Dialogue on Travel Facilitation held in Bali, for the first time, there is an attempt of coordination across fora and we hope to end up with some action plans on visa and travel facilitation.”
