
Governments deterring businessmen and tourists with cumbersome visa requirements - e15ctr0n
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21684791-governments-are-deterring-business-travellers-and-tourists-cumbersome-visa-requirements
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binarymax
It is such a shame, really. I live in the UK and my wife is Armenian. There
have been many times where we would have liked to go to France, or Holland, or
Germany, for a long weekend. Likely spending hundreds of pounds as tourists.
Yet the absurd process and cost for her is just not worth it, so we don't go,
and the tourism economy suffers. I will never understand how the visa nonsense
got so out of control, and continues to do so. Truly one of the more illogical
rules in existence.

\--EDIT-- I will add that it wouldn't be so bad if we could go through the
process once every couple years or so and get a multiple entry Shengen visa -
but that would make too much sense and be too easy, so you need to provide the
paperwork, pay the fee, and wait 2 to 4 weeks, every time for a single entry.
Crazy bullshit.

~~~
mjburgess
Can't she become a british citizen? Will that not simplify things?

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binarymax
You say that like we can just roll up to the immigration store and get a
passport any time we like.

6 years minimum for her to get citizenship. It's been 3.5

~~~
sombremesa
The US is actually worse. I've been here 8 years and I'm not even a little bit
closer than I was 8 years ago, to permanent residence let alone citizenship.

I have a six figure salary. I should probably just get married.

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cm2187
I'd add that airport security and passport controls are also deterring me from
travelling. I have very little appetite for standing for 45min+ in a queue and
when you travel international now, you do many of those (security, passports
out, passports in and all again on the way back). I don't know if many are
like me but I am limiting my travelling to the strict minimum because of that.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I don't know. When the flight is 12 hours, 45 minutes on either side isn't
such a big deal. I did get stuck in a 4 hour immigration line at Heathrow
once...I'll just avoid the UK from now on.

~~~
cm2187
I guess we all have different levels of tolerance to queueing. Mine is pretty
low, I would never go to a restaurant where I have to queue, even only for
15min. In airports, these queues are the result of pointless checks (I am not
aware that in the history of aviation a single terrorist has been caught at an
airport security check) and bad management (long queues at passport checks are
often associated with lots of empty desks).

~~~
alkonaut
The fact that terrorists/weapons/explosives are rarely caught in security
checks isn't really a compelling argument to remove security checks.

If you reverse the argument and say they exist mainly to discourage people
from trying, you could argue that they are nearly 100% successful.

In my experience security is pretty snappy compared to e.g US immigration. I
look European and find it tedious and annoying, I can only imagine what it's
like if you have a middle eastern type name or look.

~~~
afarrell
At the same time, these security checks do create places where 200+ people
gather close together in an area where it is totally reasonable for someone to
be wheeling around a 35-lbs un-checked bag.

~~~
jlarocco
So? There's no shortage of places where hundreds of people gather, where it
wouldn't be out of place to have a large package or bag. Adding a few more at
airports really isn't a big deal.

Not that I agree with all the "security", but that argument against it isn't
very convincing.

~~~
Nutmog
That means terrorists killing everyone on a plane (the same as everyone in the
security queue) is an acceptable risk, as long as they don't crash the plane
into even more people like at 9/11\. So maybe we don't need airport security
at all. Just have the air force ready to shoot down rogue commercial planes
before they reach densely populated areas.

It happened in China. Muslim terrorists attacked hundreds of people waiting in
a ticket hall. No need to go through security.

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rahimnathwani
A related article in the 'leaders' section of the print edition:
[http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21684782-they-have-
the...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21684782-they-have-their-uses-
burden-visas-impose-travellers-and-recipient-countries-too)

"Britain ... requires visa applicants to fill in a ten-page form, provide a
list of every foreign trip over the past decade and declare that they have
never incited terrorism to boot. This is absurd. ... America’s visa-waiver
programme allows citizens of 28 countries to visit by filling out a simple
online form with basic personal information."

28 countries are in the US's VWP. 56 countries (plus all EU countries) are in
the UK's visa-free entry list. So, the article is not comparing like with
like.

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gotchange
Don't you think that listing every and each trip you've done abroad for the
past 10 years is bit excessive and tormenting?

~~~
jacquesm
I wouldn't even be able to list every trip I've done abroad for the past 10
years. I'd probably forget to mention half of them, which no doubt would
trigger a whole pile of nasty sanctions for lying on an application. In some
places that might even be reason to detain you.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Google Location History to the rescue. That is about the only thing that could
help me with filling such a form, and I don't even travel much. The
requirement is ridiculous in modern times.

~~~
jacquesm
Google does not have my location history and I very much plan to keep it that
way.

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lkrubner
Some of the intellectual energy that fueled the momentum of globalization has
abated. Of course, the corporations are still 100% in favor of free movement
of goods and capital (and certain people, including business executives and
poor peasants who will work on farms in the wealthy nations). The corporations
still provide much of the energy for maintaining relatively free movement of
goods, capital and some people.

But consider the intellectual energy that drove the creation of the European
Coal and Steel Community in 1951 or the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, or the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1994. At that time, Western elites
seemed unified in their belief that open borders would benefit everyone.

Since that time, a host of concerns has arisen. Some are security related.
Others are about the uneven effects of attempts at monetary union (broadly
speaking, this includes not just Europe, but also nations like Argentina that
attempted to peg their currency to another currency (such as the USA dollar)).
Some are about currency manipulation (first Japan, then Taiwan, and then, much
more sensationally, China). And the rise of wealth inequality in all the
developed nations.

It's possible that globalization could be restructured in a way that brings
benefits to everyone. But first there would have to be a long conversation
about all the ways it is now failing.

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sauere
I worked in a job where i was in charge of getting Visas for some of our
employees (most of them U.S. citizens) for various countries all over the
world. I had never done that previously but i quickly became an expert.

Let me tell you, the countries that have the most fucked up economies are the
ones with the craziest Visa procedures. One would think that they are happy
that Tourists and Businesses are coming to spend $$$ in their country. Crazy
long forms, crazy document requirements, stupid turnaround times and zero
support - there is nerver a number or a email if you have any questions
regarding a form or edge case. It really is a pain and beyond crazy.

~~~
tacostakohashi
Yes, there are two things going on there... firstly, their economies are
fucked up _because_ they have inefficient and ineffective bureaucracies.
Secondly, visa requirements between countries are typically more or less
reciprocal, so because developed countries impose a heavy burden on travellers
from those countries, they return the favor. In many cases, they'll have visa-
free or less hassle for citizens of neighboring fucked up countries.

You mentioned that this is for U.S. citizens, so you're more or less just
dealing with a reflection of the U.S. visa burden imposed on those same
countries :)

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peteretep
This looks like an excellent place to whine about having to cancel a holiday
to Tehran because it would mean losing my visa-free travel to 'merica. Hold
exclusively a British passport.

~~~
klipt
As someone who's never had visa free travel to the US in the first place, this
is some good Schadenfreude.

Frankly I think you should still visit Iran and just get a US tourist visa
like the rest of the us. US tourist visas are good for multiple entries and
only expire after 10 years, so it's not as bad as most European countries.

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jakozaur
The actual success story, USA included South Korea in visa waiver program:
[https://vwp.ustravel.org/sites/default/files/South%20Korea_0...](https://vwp.ustravel.org/sites/default/files/South%20Korea_0.pdf)

I think all parties would benefit if USA would add a few more countries to
Visa Waiver Program like Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania and Croatia.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The USA now has 10 year tourist visas for people from China, so I don't see it
as much of a problem (most passports have 10 year validity).

~~~
cronjobber
I had an unlimited-validity-multiple-reentry visa for the US in an old
passport. When the passport expired, the page containing the visa was left
alone, everything else was mutilated and the whole mess returned to me. I
never tested it, but the visa supposedly remained valid.

EDIT: Writing "visa" as if it was a singular noun really feels strange, even
if everybody does it. You know, the pages in your passport are labeled "visa"
because they can contain many of them...

~~~
yardie
The visa is valid. If travelling to the US keep both, the valid passport and
the valid visa. Whatever you do do not cut out the visa and try and glue it
into the new passport.

/fromexperience

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legulere
Does nobody read the article before it get's published? For me a whole
paragraph (beginning with "The most sensible response") is twice in the
article.

I can see what the article states happening. When I was in Sweden as an
exchange student all the Chinese exchange students were travelling around
Europe. But not to the UK, because of the additional visa requirement.

~~~
logicchains
It's not just you, I also saw that paragraph repeated.

~~~
peteridah
LOL, I thought for a brief moment that my brain must be replicating things.

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rm_-rf_slash
I didn't get much of a sense that anybody was being deterred by visa
requirements. Pissed off, maybe, but let's say you're a business with a
potentially lucrative and growing market in a foreign country? Are you going
to suspend plans or operations because it's annoying and expensive to get a
visa? Like hell. Same goes for tourists. If you have your heart set on seeing
the Pyramids but get frustrated at the Egyptian visa process, are you really
willing to settle for, say, Lebanon?

~~~
6d0debc071
> If you have your heart set on seeing the Pyramids but get frustrated at the
> Egyptian visa process, are you really willing to settle for, say, Lebanon?

No, but I'm probably willing to settle for Germany or France. It's pretty rare
for me to have my heart set on somewhere. There are many things I want to see,
and if one country feels like being a pain in the neck, I'll just go see
something else, or go somewhere to do something else.

I'm not sure whether most tourists are more like me or more like the heart set
on kind of folks. But, even assuming that they're of the heart set on kind,
once you've seen the pyramids it's less likely to drag you back through the
bothersome process again. One would imagine a bothersome process somewhat
decreases your opportunity for repeat business.

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dawnbreez
What reasons are there for complicated visa processes? Tracking entry/exit
to/from the country can be done in a significantly more efficient way, and
there's no economic upside to adding expenses to business trips or tourism.

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FussyZeus
This is one of many reasons that Nations as a concept are rapidly becoming
obsolete and will eventually be forgotten once there isn't enough profit in
them.

~~~
zo1
There is ample "profit" to be made in each individual state, so I don't see
that happening anytime soon. If you solve the "problems" of protectionism and
globalization, then you might just get to a point where the concept of
"multiple nation states" could become obsolete.

~~~
FussyZeus
We're already solving the problems of globalization, and even if we weren't
governments are getting more and more de-fanged to resist the corporations.
People by and large don't care about the environment, most say they do but if
we told them we could save a big portion of it by eliminating Amazon Prime,
most people would opt to keep the quick shipping I think.

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davidw
Agree with the article 100% but... Politics.

