France to speed up visa delivery in drive to boost tourism

 

FILE PHOTO: An employee validates an extension visa on a foreign student's passport at a foreign visas office in Paris November 18, 2011./Charles Platiau

 

PARIS (Reuters) - France will cut visa delivery time to 48 hours for Russians, Indians and citizens of six more Asian countries in a bid to boost tourism, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Wednesday.

 

After a drop in 2016 following a wave of attacks that hit Paris and Nice, tourist numbers are rebounding this year. France is eyeing a record of as many as 89 million foreign tourists, up from 83 million last year, and 100 million visitors in 2020.

 

Citizens of Russia, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Indonesia will from Nov. 1 see the time to get a visa - which now takes around 10 days or so, more in peak season - fall to 48 hours.

 

This measure, which is already in place for a few other countries, including Qatar, would be extended to Saudi Arabia and Vietnam next year if a change in EU visa procedures for those countries allow it.

 

The government also said it would assign more staff to airport passport checks to limit waiting time to 30 minutes for EU citizens and 45 minutes for non-EU citizens.

 

Tourism generates over 7 percent of France's gross domestic product and employs 2 million people.

 

(Reporting by Marine Pennetier; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Larry King)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-07-27

Good initiative!

Funny how human beings are.

 

When things went on well, tourism and revenue were at their zenith, visa procedures were lengthy, hasslesome, some embassy staff picky, arrogant and so on.

 

On the aftermath of the numerous  terror attacks in France, tourists fled (with their revenue) , and suddenly governance wakes up, is more helpful, hospitable, obliging and shows  respect to encourage the venue of foreigners.

 

An interesting observation in changes of human nature, through hard lessons of life.

89 million foreign tourists, up from 83 million last year, and 100 million visitors in 2020.

 

All fake numbers just as in Thailand.

 

 

 

Perhaps the loss of of continental European tourists would do it?:

 

"The United Kingdom is the world's 8th biggest tourist destination, with 36.115 million visiting in 2015. US$22.072 billion was spent in the UK by foreign tourists. VisitBritain data shows that the U.S. remains the most-valuable inbound market, with American visitors spending £2.1 billion in 2010.^[2] Nevertheless, the number of travellers originating from Europe is larger than those travelling from North America - 21.5 million compared to 3.5 million American/Canadian visitors.^["

 

Which is something that the UK government is working on right now:

 

 

 

 

 

The lead singer of a rock band here in Hua Hin finished her degree and then moved up to Bangkok to work in the French Embassy to help Thai people with their visas.  I wonder if she'll see an uptick in applications?

a little bit reading 

 

not fake, and only tourists 

 

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-most-visited-countries-in-the-world.html

This is great news. I'm guessing this is a Schengen Visa? Can then easily go to other countries which a generally a PITA to get Schengen for?

2 hours ago, ncc1701d said:

This is great news. I'm guessing this is a Schengen Visa? Can then easily go to other countries which a generally a PITA to get Schengen for?

France is a Schengen member. Visitors can travel through the entire Schengen area but they need to apply at via the embassy of the country that is the main destination. In the Schengen sticky are more details.

 

A 10 day processing time is a bit slow. The legal maximum for processing a complete application (that has no issues) is 15 calendar days. Plenty of Schengen embassies manage to process the visa in 2-5 days (except for speak season obv.).

A number of off topic and otherwise unhelpful posts removed.

 

This thread is about an initiative by the French Government to reduce processing time for visa applicants, please keep responses to that subject.

 

Thanks

For the number of tourists,there is a "problem" :France considers as "tourists visiting France" all the tourists from Northern Europe who drive through France to join Spain,Italy, ,Greece...(transit tourists)...(46% of the total number)