British tourist, industry groups ask UK government to make visa processes easier for Indians

A comprehensive report released by The Royal Commonwealth Society along with a lot of aviation tourism and industry groups said that the market share of UK’s international Indian tourists has decreased by about 50 percent over the last decade.

This report has urged the British government to go soft while issuing visas for Indians for the betterment of UK tourism as many tourists prefer France over Britain. This, in turn, caused the UK exchequer to lose almost £500 million per year and more than 8,000 jobs.

The Royal Commonwealth Society director of policy and research and author of the report, Tim Hewish, was quoted by the International Business Times as saying that their organisation is hopeful that the government would pay attention to the very conspicuous benefits of their recommendation and improve the already close bonding shared between the two Commonwealth countries.

The several groups, which had provided inputs to the report, suggested that India also should be on the list of Britain’s two-year visitor visa scheme of £87, which was announced for Chinese tourists in 2015 by Prime Minister David Cameron. Currently, Indian travellers shell out £330 for a two-year visa and £87 for a six-month visa.

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) director general, Chandrajit Banerjee, said this suggestion of a two-year British visa for Indians would give a leg up to UK tourism He also added that it was being recommended at an opportune time since 2017 had been declared the UK-India Year of Culture.

According to the report, the over 400,000 Indian visitors to the UK in 2015 spent almost two times the money when compared to the average visitor to Britain and the Indian business visitors’ expenditure in that country is almost thrice the amount of what an average business visitor spends.

If you also plans on visiting Britain, do come to Y-Axis, which will provide you assistance and guidance to file for a visa.