Australia’s tourism industry wants the upcoming federal budget to include more resources to ease visa processing delays.
Introducing a “visa for life” to cash in on spontaneous foreign travellers and “passport-free” entry to Australia are among the items on the tourism industry’s budget wishlist.
In its pre-budget submission to Treasury, the Australian Tourism Export Council has recommended Australia invest in a “visa for life” for regular travellers that have cleared the appropriate checks.
“Many of our close Asian neighbours, affluent Asian neighbours in particular, are last minute decision makers.”They might be sitting in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and saying ‘let’s go to Australia for the weekend’. People are starting to think like that,” Mr Shelley said.
The industry is concerned that visa processing backlogs are causing Australia to miss out on visitors.
Mr Shelley said more resources are needed to streamline and speed up the visa processing system, particularly to deal with the increase in visitors from India and China.
Source: SBS News
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