The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) and VFS Global jointly hosted a meeting on 14th June 2023 to discuss the way forward with travel-trade fraternity. The meeting evening was marked by the presence of TAFI members, travel agents, and operators representing the hospitality as well airline industries. The meeting was also graced by the presence and discussion of Mr. Ajay Prakash, President, TAFI, and Mr. Prabuddha Sen, COO-South Asia VFS Global with the fraternity.
During the discussion, Sen referred to a set of pain-points where the applicants, agents, as well VFS Global face the roadblocks, and indicated the intent of engaging together with agents with collaborative efforts to spreading awareness in order to tackle the fraudulent or forgery challenges that are prevailing.
Talking about some hindering blocks, Sen highlighted the challenge of the team in getting the appointments for VISA. “Even the diplomatic community is at whilst to deal with this problem in India. We had a lot of promises when we started this year in 2023 and considered that we will be able to deliver more. But this year I consider it worse than the last year. We all are together in this, and the only way forward is to make continued efforts and there will be no change right tomorrow, this will take time”, Sen added.
He further opined, “We don’t think the next year is going to be a lot better, because I do not see the preparedness in the Schengen community to deal with the situation. We constantly engage with them at the diplomatic mission level, also with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while there is a lot of progressiveness at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but in the end, it does not circulate down to the State level of delivery when it comes to the diplomatic presence in India.”
Sen also mentioned that with the situation in China not having opened up, and Russia still being in the geopolitical space, there is a serious need for a workforce in Europe. Europe is looking at South Asia, pre-dominantly India, also Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, for being their market support. “But for the number of people they are engaging, recruiting, and issuing a work-permit, only a fraction is able to apply for a VISA. So, there is a huge gap in what the centre is saying and then what they are being able to achieve”, Sen stated.
At the same time, another challenge comes from tech, is to order to capture those appointments. “Bot is going to the next level altogether. If you think it is being used from here, absolutely not. It is completely being managed from outside India. Even, we have put systems in place, where we have released appointments only 2%, with a completely well-managed security apparatus to check that there is no possibility of internal issue. Our team has made a detailed study and we saw the pattern unprecedented”, according to Sen.
Sen also highlighted that post pandemic, the applicants’ mindset and the demographics have shifted drastically. In spite of the high air-fares, geopolitical issues, and high fuel prices, the year 2023-2024 looks to stabilize the travel and tourism scenario. “We are positive with the projections. The average age of India is low, the propensity to travel is there and it is shifting to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities”, Sen stated. The Tier 1 are all mature markets, but we believe that Tier 2 and Tier 3 are going to come up as the population is huge. After more than a decade, VFS Global has opened a VISA application center in Lucknow and we are looking at few more points in India to increase the outreach. “We are in 19 now but are easily looking at 5-6 more by this year.”
According to Sen, the quality of the application is poor because of the ‘VISA shopping’ happening. Providing an example, he said when someone intends to go to A, and the entire documentation is done for A, suddenly with the appointment availability with B, they divert their application to B. They might have changed 18 out of 20 things in the application, but they have still left a trail of incorrect fields in the document and there are chances of this VISA getting rejected or a prolonged process. But I am confident that the situation will be better, Sen assured.
VFS Global Aims to Deploy 5-6 Application Centers in India, Ahead Of Its Current 19
