Industry insiders: Tourism visas have not yet been restored, and India has been included in the list of restored outbound team tours. Tourists | Tourism | Industry insiders
On August 10th, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced the third batch of list for resuming outbound team tours, which includes popular countries such as South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as relatively niche tourist destinations like India.
First Financial previously reported that India has recently implemented an unreasonable visa system for Chinese citizens, which not only poses high application difficulties but also results in a relatively high visa rejection rate. At the same time, the Consulate General of India in Shanghai recently confirmed to First Financial reporters that the issuance of tourist visas to Chinese citizens has not been resumed.
Several industry insiders engaged in South Asian tourism have told First Financial reporters that even though India is among the third batch of outbound group tour countries, they will not resume group tours to India in the short term, mainly because tourist visas and direct flights between China and India have not been restored.
Kulkani, advisor to former Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and founder of the Indian think tank New South Asia Forum, told First Financial reporters that the Indian government should provide convenience for Chinese citizens to travel to India, promote personnel exchanges and cultural exchanges between the two sides, in order to promote the development of China India relations.
India does not issue tourist visas
Due to the pandemic, India suspended the entry of all foreign nationals holding Indian visas in March 2020. Since then, with the normalization of the pandemic, there has been some relaxation. Starting from October 2021, it has gradually resumed opening up to international tourists.
Up to now, India has opened a variety of electronic visas, including tourist visas, to 166 countries and regions in the world, which can usually be signed within three days. Among the G20 countries, only China and Türkiye fail to enjoy this treatment. According to Indian media reports, India began implementing stricter visa measures for Chinese citizens in September 2020.
In April 2022, the International Air Transport Association announced that it had received a notification from India that "tourist visas issued to Chinese citizens are no longer valid." At the same time, staff members of the Indian Embassy in China also publicly stated that tourist visas had not been issued in China since the outbreak of the pandemic.
According to the official website of the Chinese Embassy in India, the Chinese Embassy in India has resumed issuing various types of visas for foreigners to China since March 15th this year. On May 30th, Wang Xiaojian, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in India, revealed on social media Twitter that in the first five months of this year, the Chinese Embassy in India has issued over 60000 visas to Indian citizens for purposes such as business, study abroad, tourism, work, and family reunion.
However, India has not yet resumed the issuance of tourist visas, and applying for visas for business, study, and work purposes is also quite challenging. Nowadays, applying for a business visa to India requires more than 20 documents, but these materials are not publicly displayed on the websites of the Indian Embassy, Consulate, and Indian Visa Center.
Moreover, some of the application materials clearly exceed the reasonable scope, such as going to India for business negotiations, which not only requires the applicant's highest education level, but also requires notarization of the education level and submission of the original notarized certificate when applying.
At the same time, the number of application materials is constantly increasing. A person who recently applied for an Indian business visa told First Financial reporters that after August 1st, the application materials have added a certificate of no criminal record and a notarized certificate. The applicant's annual income certificate has suddenly increased from 100000 RMB to 250000 RMB.
The recovery of tourism in South Asia
In fact, before the epidemic, India actively sought Chinese tourists to travel to India. In August 2018, the then Minister of Tourism of India, Alfonse, told First Financial reporters that there were too few Chinese tourists coming to India, and they were making various efforts to increase the number of Chinese tourists visiting India.
He said at the time, "We need more Chinese tourists to come to India, and we have set a goal. In the short term, perhaps within a few years, I hope that 1% of Chinese outbound tourists will come to India; in the long run, I hope that 10% of Chinese outbound tourists will come to India."
India began issuing electronic tourist visas to Chinese citizens in July 2015, and in October 2019, it further relaxed its electronic visa policy for Chinese citizens, starting to issue electronic tourist visas that are valid for 5 years and can enter multiple times.
Liu Jianli, the person in charge of "Yue Ya Tour", which specializes in South Asian tourism routes, told First Financial reporters that before the epidemic, Chinese citizens had a stable growth in tourism to India, and the growth in the South China market, mainly in Guangzhou, was relatively obvious.
This time, South Asian countries Pakistan and Bangladesh have also been included in the recovery list. Regarding the current recovery of the domestic South Asian tourism market, Liu Jianli said that Sri Lanka and Nepal have already been on the recovery list, and Pakistan and Bangladesh are currently mainly engaged in exhibition business travel.
He further stated that due to the significant increase in travel costs after the epidemic and various reasons, the willingness of tourists to travel abroad is not high, and they are more inclined towards domestic destinations. Therefore, the overall recovery of tourism in South Asia is still not optimistic.
