Changes to Britain’s visa rules, that will involve charging tourists and others applying for visas to visit the country if they wish to be in touch by email, have been criticised by opposition parties and the tourism industry.
As of Thursday visa applicants wishing to contact UK Visas and Immigration by email will be charged £5.48, as customer enquiries are shifted to a new commercial partner, Sitel UK.
This change and others, which include the reduction of languages in which services are offered, and changes to opening hours were needed to “help the government reduce costs and ensure those who benefit directly from the UK immigration system make an appropriate contribution,” UK Visa and Immigration said in a statement earlier this week.
“Britain should be trying to attract more tourists and highly skilled workers, these new rules make it less likely they will apply,” said Susan Kramer, the Liberal Democrat’s spokesperson on business, who put it in the context of wider changes to the immigration system proposed by the Conservative manifesto.
Britain’s share of India’s outbound tourist market has halved in the past decade. “We welcome our many visitors from India to the UK but we cannot take their interest in coming here for granted,” said Ufi Ibrahim, Chief Executive of the British Hospitality Association.
“Tourism is a highly price and time sensitive activity. If the visa application process is too cumbersome, demands too much time and the cost of the visa is perceived to be too high, potential visitors are put off and quickly turn to the completion.”
Ibrahim contrasted Britain’s falling share of India’s tourism market (which has been growing at an annual rate of 10 per cent) with that of German and France.
“Hospitality and tourism businesses in the UK are already facing rising costs and the prospect of labour shortages, so it’s doubly important that the government do not hinder our ability to compete.”
Aspects of the British government’s approach to visitors’ visas have come under fire for a while now, with the Royal Commonwealth Society warning last year that Britain had missed a golden opportunity to introduce more favourable visitors visas for Indian nationals when Prime Minister Theresa May visited India last November, which it said would provide a crucial boost to numbers at a time that Britain was losing its share.