I’M very excited this month at the prospect of a visit to Hollywood. As I type I am envisaging sashaying down Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard courtesy of Turkish Airlines which is about to introduce flights to Los Angeles.
But I have to say, if US inbound tourism is suffering it comes as no surprise given the hoops one has to jump through in order to actually enter the country.
As a UK passport holder the process is, theoretically, pretty simple with the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA). Apparently, I can go online and apply for a visa which, my chums assure me, is a very simple and inexpensive process.
Ha, that’s all very well but, being a responsible traveller, I figured I ought to be registering as a business visitor.
Enter the dragon in the form of the DS160, the application which must be filled out, followed by a visit to the US Consulate, before one can set a business-shoe clad foot on US soil.
What can I say?
Four failed attempts at registration had me on the phone to the US Embassy in Bahrain where a polite, but not particularly helpful, staffer told me I couldn’t make an appointment for Thursday since they only see applicants on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday.
I explained that, no, I was not seeking a Thursday appointment but rather to travel on Thursday. My problem was that their system would not let me complete the registration form so I could not even get to the making an appointment stage!
We talked at cross purposes for about 10 minutes before, close to a verbal explosion which would probably have seen me banned from the shores of the promised land for ever more, I decided to give up and try again at home in the evening.
Much to my temporary flatmate’s amusement, I won’t say sympathy since what’s to sympathise with when your chum is jetting off on such a wonderful jaunt while you sit at home, I spent a further two hours dutifully filling out the dreaded form.
Much screeching and pulling of hair, mine not hers, later and I had finally cracked it, or so I thought.
Though I must admit questions such as ‘are you going to the US to engage in terrorism’ and ‘have you ever severely (presumably moderately is OK) curtailed anyone’s religious freedoms’, did give me pause for thought!
Anyway, as it turns out it was all academic. DS160 bar code in hand, I tried to book an appointment only to discover they were all taken until well after I was hoping to travel.
The whole process seems to me long-winded and, dare I say it, considering this is the ‘land of the free and home of the brave’, pretty unfriendly. And it made me suddenly appreciate the trials and tribulations of my Indian and Filipino colleagues who have a much tougher time than I when trying to gain entry to many Western countries.
As one put it, with illegal immigration I can understand that nations want to protect their borders. But does anyone really believe those planning to cause security problems or disappear into the sprawling black market labour force are actually going to bother applying for the proper visa certification?
So, back to square one and I decided to give ESTA a go in the hope that this will be sufficient since I won’t actually be engaging in any reporting whilst I’m there. I’ll let you know next month whether I made it.
Last year Thailand was in turmoil with protestors and violence on the streets and international travel warnings urging visitors to stay away. Now the same is happening in many parts of the Middle East.
But those of us who live here, like the Thais outside Bangkok, are busily assuring worried friends and family that all is well aside from the flashpoints.
And like Thailand we must look to recovery with travel and tourism at the forefront both economically, particularly in countries such as Egypt where the industry is such a strong contributor to the GDP, and educationally in terms of letting the rest of the world know how much the Middle East has to offer.
By Liz O’Reilly