The Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) noted that the length of visa issuance had affected Australia's reputation as a convenient tourist destination and called on both parties to take measures to address the problem as soon as possible.
According to reports, the Australian Tourism Export Council also wants both parties to address the rising visa costs. The latest federal budget increases visa fees for tourists and work vacations.
The agency said the long visa processing time and the old application system would seriously affect Australia's competitive edge in the global tourism market, particularly in India and China.
Shelley (Peter Shelley), head of Australia's Tourism Export Council, said the latest budget, on the one hand, raised the cost of working vacation visas by more than 5.4% (A $35), and on the other hand announced funding to "revitalize" the market. This puzzles this body.
He said migrant vacationers are one of the biggest contributors to Australia, who typically travel deep into remote areas of Australia and work while spending money there. Holiday tourists are extremely sensitive to costs, and a rise of A $35 may have a repressive effect on them.
Shelley pointed out that the Indian market has been affected, because of Australia's long signing time, many local international travel agencies have no longer bid for Australian tourism products. He said agencies were not aware of the huge commercial links that could result from delays and that the entire tour plan would fail as long as the visa of one of the tour groups was extended.
In an effort to improve the efficiency of visa processing, Australia's Home Office had previously worked with major tourism agencies, but the situation has changed, with the issuance of the visa now delayed to 40 days, Mr. Shelley said. He noted that Australia's goverment's national (ADS) plan, a popular destination for Chinese citizens, had been signed for only 48 hours, but is now more than a week old.
"even more worrisome is that visitor visas (600 sub-category visas) for Chinese tourists have been processed for up to four weeks," he said.
Shelley said Australia's visa policy was once a global model, with tourism exports earning more than A $44 billion, but the situation is no doubt worrisome.