Long visa waiting times are affecting the surge in outbound travel of Indians to the United States, the industry stakeholders have said.
Recently, there has been an increase in travel demand from Indians to the US, VisaGuide.World reports.
As a DMC, we have been organizing roadshows in different Indian cities including tier-II and tier-III markets. The outbound demand for the US from segments like families, students and MICE groups is growing across the country but visa appointments are not readily available. So, we are also noticing travel plans getting postponed to next year.
In this regard, the director of Middle East & India, United Airlines, Harvinder Singh, said that business, students and leisure are leading the demand.
Singh said that there had been noted an increase in interest from small and medium-sized enterprises from non-metro Indian cities traveling to the United States to explore business opportunities.
According to the co-founder and group CEO of MakeMyTrip, Rajesh Magow, an effective way to deal with visa challenges would be the introduction of short-term tourist visas.
Magow said the demand for the US is only going to increase, adding that there is a strong business case for increasing capacity and offering more and more visas. He added that short-term tourist visas could be an innovation in order to address the challenge.
US Top Choice for Indian Students
According to the Open Doors Report (ODR) published in November 2023, the US was the top choice for Indian students pursuing higher education.
The same revealed that the number of international students to India surged by 35 per cent in the academic year 2022-23, with a total of 268,923 students marking an all-time high record.
The ODR’s report showed that India surpassed China to become the largest source of international graduate students in the US for the first time since 2009/10.
Over $40 Billion Invested in US by Indian Companies
A total of 163 Indian companies invested over $40 billion in the US as of May 2023.
Such conclusions were reached from a survey from “Indian Roots, American Soil” of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) provided in May last year.
The survey revealed that these Indian companies in the US created a total of 4,25,000 jobs.
Indians Second Biggest Overseas Visitors to the US
In spite of difficulties brought on by long wait times for visa interviews, Indians accounted for the second largest group of overseas visitors to the US in the summer of 2023.
Such conclusions were reached in the US Commerce Department’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), known as the “inbound survey of International Air Travellers (SIAT) for the second quarter of last year, or for a period from April to June last year.