Making visas available in many ways is viewed as a path to inspiring economic growth and job creation because it leads to increased tourism, reveals a study by UNWTO and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
The study shows that G20 economies could increase their international tourist numbers by 122 million, accumulate an addition $206 billion in tourism exports, while making more than five million more jobs by 2015 simply by facilitating the visa process.
The report also showed that out of the 656 million international tourists who visited G20 countries in 2011 about 110 million needed a visa. The WTTC also said that millions more changed their mind about traveling because of the cost, waiting time and due to the complexity over getting a visa.
Making it easier for these tourists to get a visa could result in the creation of more than five million more jobs in the G20 nations by 2015. This would also produce an additional $206 billion in international tourism receipts, the WTTC reported.
A spokesman for the WTTC explained how "In spite of the great strides made in recent decades to facilitate tourist travel, there are still important areas of opportunity, namely considering the possibilities to maximize the use of information and communication technologies in improving visa procedures. Further opportunities include improving the delivery of information, facilitating current processes to obtain visas, differentiated treatment to facilitate tourist travel, instituting eVisa programs and establishing regional agreements for visa facilitation."
Taleb Rifai, UNWTO Secretary-General, further commented how "Small steps towards visa facilitation can result in big economic benefits. By facilitating visas, the G20 countries stand to gain five million jobs at a time of rampant unemployment across the world. These are in addition to the hundreds of millions of direct and indirect jobs already being supported every day by the sector."
According to David Scowsill, WTTC president & CEO, "Encouraging freedom to travel is a simple step that governments around the world can take to encourage more travelers and the creation of millions of new jobs and billions of dollars of GDP - without compromising national security. For the first time, this report makes clear the extent of the opportunity - it cannot be ignored."
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