Visa facilitation can create five million jobs in G20 economies

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), visa facilitation is central to stimulating economic growth and job creation through tourism. Preliminary findings show that 656 million tourists visited G20 countries in 2011, with 110 million of them needing a visa. Millions more were deterred from travelling due to the cost, waiting time, and difficulty of obtaining a visa.

Great strides have been made in the past decades to facilitate tourist travel, but there are still important areas of opportunity. There are many possibilities for maximizing use of information and communication technologies in improving visa procedures. Improving the delivery of information and instituting eVisa programs are more examples of measures that can be taken to create jobs and encourage tourist travel.

The UNWTO estimates that over 5 million jobs in the G20 economies could be created by facilitating visas for these tourists. An additional $206 billion in tourism receipts could be generated by 2015. Clearly, this presents a great opportunity that many are looking to capitalize on. One such person is UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, who had this to say: “Small steps towards visa facilitation can result in big economic benefits. By facilitating visas, the G20 countries stand to gain five million jobs at a time of rampant unemployment across the world. These are in addition to the hundreds of millions of direct and indirect jobs already being supported every day by the sector.”

This latest report has brought to light the extent of this opportunity that has presented itself. It is simply too big of an opportunity to be ignored any longer. It will be interesting to see if the Governments of G20 countries will look into enhancing visa facilitation in support of job creation. Let’s hope so.