Tourists are back with a bang, but a long visa wait is keeping them away from the United States

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Spain recovered 86% of its pre-pandemic tourist arrivals in 2022, and arrivals this year already show a 28% increase over 2019 levels. France follows closely with year-to-date international visitors numbering just 3% less than before the Covid-19 pandemic and their spending at record levels, according to Atout France, a government tourism agency. The US, on the other hand, is falling behind. International tourist arrivals remain at 26% below pre-pandemic levels, according to a June 2023 monthly report from the US Travel Association, with spending slower, too. At the close of 2022, international visitor spending in the US was at $99 billion, just over 50% of where it stood in 2019. That’s a far cry from 2019, when the US received 79.4 million visitors, who spent $181 billion. “The lag is very significant, and we are very concerned,” says Geoff Freeman, US Travel’s chief executive officer. “We estimate that this year alone we’re going to lose about 2.6 million international visitors and $7 billion less in spending.” The US travel industry isn’t expected to recover to 2019 levels until 2025. Those two additional years will translate into “billions of dollars of lost spending, of lost jobs,” says Freeman.

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For the first time in history, the US is also running a multiyear travel deficit: Americans are spending more money abroad on their travels than international tourists are spending in the US.

The State Department’s US visa processing delays continue at the top of the obstacle list. As of early July, visa wait times remained above 400 days for first-time applicants from top markets that do not qualify for visa