Articles tagged “state department”

The U.S. travel industry should lower their expectations that the assistant secretary for travel and tourism will make their jobs easier.

The U.S. has added Israel to the Visa Waiver Program, the U.S. Department of State announced Wednesday. Starting November 30, Israeli citizens and nationals will be to travel to the…

The amount of time a first-time visitor visa applicant in India has to wait for an interview has fallen from an average of 669 days in mid-March to 337 days…

We're four months into 2023 and first-time visitors from the U.S.'s top inbound countries still have to wait nearly a year for just an interview. This is slowing down the U.S.'s recovery to its pre-pandemic level.

Travel executives have taken the U.S. government to task for not remedying more quickly the delay in processing travel visas that they say is costing the U.S. travel industry in big ways. We went to the top government official working on this. She says efforts are now producing real results, and asks for patience.

Global average wait times for U.S. visitor visas dropped below 150 days in January for the first time since 2021, according to the U.S. Travel Association. They still, however, remain…

One more impact of the global labor shortage is the protracted wait time for visas that will continue to hurt the U.S.'s international tourism recovery if quick solutions aren't found.

In the wake of the mass shootings that claimed 31 lives in early August, several authorities have issued travel alerts for travelers headed to the U.S. Whether it's a statement or a matter of safety — or both — it's significant.

In the wake of a tragedy, destinations are hugely beholden to the public perception of how safe it is to travel there, regardless of the reality on the ground. But the United States — which has experienced more mass shootings than there are days in 2019 — is unfairly exempt from that struggle.

It's a complicated world and the State Department is trying to make it a little less complicated for U.S. travelers wondering if it's safe to travel somewhere. There will likely be a learning curve to understand the new system and how other countries respond to them.