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Visa Regulations : A Balancing Act Essay

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3. Visa regulations – A balancing act
3.1. Background information

Besides the strategic campaigns “Tourism for Tomorrow” and “Policies for growth”, the “Freedom to Travel” campaign takes a major part in the communication and negation between the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and other tourism stakeholders, predominantly the governmental level. “Ensuring the right of people to travel safe, securely and efficiently across international borders” (WTTC, 2014, p. 10) is the mission statement of this campaign that aims to support the rapid growth of tourism around the globe by simplifying visa and immigration processes.

Visas, according to the UNWTO (2012), are the tangible execution of a state’s “sovereign right to control the access of foreign nationals to their territories” (p. 8). The organization continues by listing six major purposes of visa (see Figure 3-1 ).

Figure 3 1: Purposes of visa policies adapted from UNWTO, 2012, pp. 8 -9
These purposes can vary in their weighting based on the type of visa, e.g. for work, study, residency, or leisure. The latter is of the highest importance for the tourism industry, therefore, the studies from the UNWTO and its affiliated organisations such as the WTTC, focus on “non-immigrant visas” (UNWTO, 2012, p. 7). In addition, only visas in hard copy format are considered; visa policies around, so-called, eVisas and visas on arrival are excluded.
The latest “Visa Openness Report”,

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