U.S. Travel escalates efforts to reduce visa wait times

Monday, December 12, 2022

The U.S. Travel Association is escalating the consequences of lengthy visitor visa interview wait times by launching Spanish and Portuguese language versions of the website USVisaDelays.com. It will be shared widely in key source markets abroad where potential travelers are experiencing extreme wait times—years-long in some cases—simply to apply to visit the United States.

“With the launch of these new multilingual websites, we aim to give a voice to potential visitors who are waiting hundreds of days just to get an interview to visit the U.S.,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman. “We cannot afford to turn these visitors away, but they will simply choose other destinations unless the Biden administration commits itself to reducing visitor visa wait times.”

The English version of USVisaDelays.com is also live and travelers and U.S. businesses are posting stories of the toll of excessive delays.

‘They Wait, We Lose’ aims to highlight the economic cost of delaying visitation from qualified international travelers and the multilingual USVisaDelays.com website seeks real-life stories from potential visitors and U.S. businesses impacted by lengthy visa wait times.

U.S. Travel estimates that the U.S. will lose nearly 7 million potential visitors and $12 billion in projected spending in 2023 due to excessive wait times. Recent information suggests the State Department has made progress in several visa categories, but not in the area of B-1 and B-2 visitor visas.

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