Calls for faster paid for visa processing in Australia

Premium visa processing should be offered to people arriving in Australia who are willing to pay extra to be fast tracked, it is claimed.

It means they would be able to pay to skip long queues at immigration and customs under a plan backed by the Tourism and Transport Forum, Australia’s peak tourism industry body.The thinking behind the move is to encourage big spending visitors from Asia and elsewhere by offering paid for premium visitor visa processing.

It comes at a time when a number of prominent business people are calling for it to be easier for Chinese people to get visas.Is our morality at sea with the refugees?‘Premium processing is a great opportunity to deliver a quicker process for visitors willing to pay more. This could include shorter turnaround for the approval process and a VIP experience on arrival in Australia,’ said TTF chief executive Ken Morrison.

‘This doesn’t reduce the level of scrutiny, just speeds up the process for application and once they get here,’ he added.

The plan echoes other planned or existing programmes that provide preferential treatment to people passing through immigration and a number of airlines, including Qantas, also offer speedier immigration processing for first and business class passengers at selected airports.

No figure has been put on the extra cost for fast track processing but a similar service in Dubai charges visitors up to $95.The TTF has also proposed online visitor visa processing for tourists from vital visitor markets such as China, and producing visa application forms in Chinese and other key Asian languages.

The organisation would also like to see the introduction of three-year, multiple entry visas for Chinese leisure visitors. ‘Earlier this year, the Abbott government introduced three-year, multiple entry visas for Chinese business visitors and we’d encourage them to do the same for leisure visitors,’ Morrison explained.

Is our morality at sea with the refugees?

Just after John Howard had successfully implemented his Pacific Solution Mark I 2001 stopping the boats with, in hindsight, more bluff than actual shock and awe, I spoke at an Anglican Church on the moral quandaries then confronting us.

Abraham said, 'Remember, my child, that all the good things fell to you while you were alive, and all the bad to Lazarus; now he has his consolation here and it is you who are in agony. But that is not all: there is a great chasm fixed between us; no one from our side who wants to reach you can cross it, and none may pass from your side to us.'

Seeking to implement a Christian Response to refugees and asylum seekers on our doorstep, I said we might contemplate the present Australian version of the parable of Dives and Lazarus: Luke 16:19―26 with a contemporary Australian gloss.

There was once a rich man, who dressed in purple and the finest linen, and feasted in great magnificence every day. At his gate covered with sores, lay a poor man named Lazarus, who would have been glad to satisfy his hunger with the scraps from the rich man's table. Even the dogs used to come and lick his sores. One day the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up; and there, far away was Abraham with Lazarus beside him.

'Abraham, my father,' he called out, 'Take pity on me! Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue, for I am in agony in this fire. And remember that I overlooked Lazarus at my door only because there were many other people on the other side of the world who were in even greater need. I wanted to dispense charity and justice in an orderly way, not rewarding queue jumpers like Lazarus who is now with you.'

UK to offer 24-hour visa service

The UK's visa application center in Shanghai will begin offering a 24-hour visa service sometime this summer following its recent office expansion, a consulate official said Tuesday.

All of the UK's 12 visa application centers in China have been expanded to handle the growing number of visa applicants in China, said Dominique Hardy, regional manager of UK Visas and Immigration Home Office.The number of UK visas issued to Chinese visitors in 2013 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards jumped 39 percent year-on-year to 291,919, the largest increase of any country where the UK issues visas, according to British immigration statistics.

The 24-hour service will cost Chinese applicants about 600 pounds $1,003 in addition to the 83 pounds in current visa fees, Hardy said, adding that details will be released later.Last summer, the Shanghai visa center offered a 3-5 day priority visa service for tourists, business visitors, family visitors and skilled or temporary workers. In July alone, 11,000 people used the service.

The UK visa application center in Shanghai expanded from 448 square meters to 700 square meters when it moved from the ground floor to the third floor of the Guangfa Bank Tower on Xujiahui Road, according to a press release from the British Consulate-General Shanghai.The new office can accommodate 120 applicants at a time. It features seven biometric enrollment rooms, where applicants' fingerprints are taken, and seven video conferencing rooms, where officials in the UK interview student visa applicants.

Chinese students hoping to study in the UK must do the interviews to obtain a student visa under rules introduced by the UK government.An applicant must first fill out an application online, pay the fees and book an appointment before showing up at the center for the interview. The whole process takes about 20 minutes, according to an employee at the center.

Tourism for Tomorrow Awards

Another important feature of WTTC Global Summit is the ‘Tourism for Tomorrow Awards'. The awards recognise the most innovative businesses and destinations in Sustainable Tourism best practices. In their tenth year under WTTC stewardship, the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards have been expanded to reflect the broadening scope of WTTC’s sustainability agenda. There are now six award categories to recognise the areas of human resources and innovation. Eighteen independent experts on Sustainable Tourism have selected three finalists for each category.

costas_christ.jpgThe selection of finalists and winners is a three-step process. Led by Costas Christ, Chairman of Judges, Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, the panel shortlists finalists, following which there are on-site field evaluations. A Winner Selection Committee conducts detailed review of the applications and the on-site evaluation report and then winners are selected.

If the answer to where Modi and Obama could meet for the first time is the United States, then we must first knock aside the visa issue. The Prime Minister of India goes to any country only upon an appropriate invitation and the host government has to ensure full protocol. Thus it is irresponsible to even discus that the U.S. could invite the Indian PM, and then keep him hanging about a visa!

Christ said, “Each year, more than 20 international experts from around the world, representing the private sector, academic institutions, non-profit organisations, and governments, come together as independent judges to select the finalists and winners of the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards. This truly prestigious group of judges, hailing from Australia to Mexico, and from Kenya to Mongolia, represents the heart of the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards programme.

In addition, the independent on-site evaluation of every finalist ensures that Sustainable Tourism achievements are demonstrated in practice as well as in principle, helping to usher in a global transformation of the travel and tourism industry, as an opportunity to protect natural and cultural heritage and improve local livelihoods around the world.”

Number of Chinese tourists to surge 60% this year

The Tourism Ministry forecasts that the number of Chinese visitors will surge 60% this year to 40,000 as Israel tries to take a bigger bite into the more than $100 billion that Chinese tourists spend annually.

More than three years ago, then-Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov prioritized tourism from China. Since then, tourist arrivals from the Middle Kingdom have increased between 20% and 30% annually, but the numbers are minuscule compared to the 100 million Chinese who took overseas trips last year.

Israel is particularly targeting middle- and upper-class tourists as well as Chinese Christians.UK Entrepreneur VISA FAST In 2012, the Chinese tourist’s average spending per day in Israel was $286 not including souvenirs ― higher than for visitors from any other country. Overall, Chinese tourists spent $102 billion on overseas travel.

As part of the government’s efforts, Tourism Minister Uzi Landau will head a delegation to China in June that will include executives from the Israeli airline and hotel industries. The 20 or so Israelis will study the needs of Chinese tourists, seek to develop ties with travel wholesalers in China, and address barriers to growth in Chinese tourism to the Holy Land.

A big barrier is the red tape in issuing tourist visas to Chinese citizens, something the Tourism Ministry aims to simplify.

“Our challenge is to dramatically reduce the amount of time ― currently as much as a month ― that it takes a Chinese tourist to obtain an Israeli visa,” Landau said. “To accomplish this, we are in touch with the immigration authorities, the Interior Ministry and the embassy in China.”

Another major impediment is El Al Israel Airlines’ monopoly on nonstop flights to and from China.

“We’ve had several discussions with the head of the Chinese aviation authority about more direct flights to Israel, and we’ll be appointing a special adviser precisely for that purpose ― adding another airline to fly directly from China. More direct routes could change the entire picture,” Landau said, adding that efforts were being made to add a weekly charter flight from Shanghai.