UK Visas & Immigrations plan to introduce a pilot run of their Passport Passback system in India in Chennai in December. This information was provided by Ken Baietti, Entry Clearance Officer, UK Visas & Immigration at a seminar recently hosted in Mumbai by VisitBritain. The seminar was to better help the agents understand the advantages of becoming a BritAgent. The seminar was organised on the heels of a successful webinar conducted through T3, which saw over 400 unique attendees. Addressing the agents in Mumbai, Shivali Suri, Country Manager – India, VisitBritain revealed that the body plans more such webinars.
“The Passport Passback system allows applicants to take their passport back post document submission if they need to furnish another embassy with it for another visa. Which means, someone applying for a schengen visa along with a UK visa can do them simultaneously, and bring the passport back to us when the other visa is done,” explained Baietti. He further added that the process will be rolled out in Chennai in December as a pilot run, and based on its success, will be introduced to other cities in India by mid-2014.
Speaking about the various measures being taken to encourage Indian footfall to Britain, Baietti stated that a Visa4UK upgrade is an ongoing process, and a mandatory online payment measure will be added by December. In addition, UK plans more mobile biometric clinics in more cities across India. “We had a 85 per cent success rate for holiday visas, 90 per cent success rate for business visas and 80 per cent success rate for student visas,” Baietti revealed.
Suri stated that VisitBritain has several B2B events in the pipeline to engage with the Indian travel trade. First off, the body will host its India Trade Mission on 28 January 2014 in Mumbai, followed by its first standalone participation at SATTE 2014. “It is the first time VisitBritain will be attending SATTE as its own entity, and we will be bringing in 20-25 suppliers from Britain, including hotels, tourism products, attractions and so on. We inted to provide them a wow! experience as far as business with India goes,” she said.
She further added that UK will hold its Hosted Buyer Marketplace in UK, a B2B mart by invitation only. Trade co-ops, she concluded, are an ongoing process.