Skift India Daily: U.S.-India Visa Backlog Gets Urgent Help From U.S. Consulate
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Editor's Note: Good morning, India! We are pleased to launch Skift's India Travel Daily today. While we have continued to grow our coverage of travel coming in and from India, this newsletter is a testament to the faith that we have in the India market and its potential to be one of the biggest tourism markets in the world. World Travel and Tourism Council’s Economic Impact Research mentioned that India is expected to overtake Germany to become the world’s third most powerful travel and tourism market by 2032. We couldn't have asked for a better time to be launching a Skift India newsletter.
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Taking note of the massive delay in processing visas, the U.S. is taking steps to reduce wait times for Indians. The U.S. Consulate in Mumbai has brought in consular officers from around the world to help out with visa operations. “All hands on deck to reduce visa wait times! Our incredible team of consular officers have temporarily left their regular duties around the world, from the State Department in DC to the U.S. Consulate Naha, to help out with visa operations in Mumbai,” the consulate in Mumbai tweeted. Reducing visa delays has been a priority for the U.S. consulates in India as wait times for visitor visas are still around 614 days. The U.S. Embassy in India processed over 100,000 visa applications in January 2023, their highest total in a single month and the highest in any month since July 2019, according to media reports.
Indians spent a record $9.95 billion on foreign travel from April-December 2022, more than any full financial year. According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Indians spent more than $1 billion on travel in the months of November and December last year, taking the total spend on outbound travel between April and December 2022 to $9.95 billion. With this the share of travel rose to 51 percent of international spending in financial year 2023 compared to 35 percent in 2022. The spend on travel during 2021-22 was $4.16 billion, and the highest spend in travel was $7 billion before the pandemic in the 2019-2020 financial year.
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