The price of a visitor visa for the UK has just gone up by a bit over 5% to a flat £100 for visitors who are required to have a visa, drawing objections from the tourism industry as well as, potentially, from would-be visitors who, the industry fears, will just go somewhere else.
The 'somewhere else' could well be Europe, where the cost of a visa that covers all Schengen countries, not just a single country, is £69 or 80€. While a visa, and therefore the fee, is not required for visitors from the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan or Singapore, it does affect everyone else, including the two most populous countries, China and India, who form an important part of UK tourism.
Joss Croft, head of the association UKinbound told press that "The decision to increase visa prices is absolutely tone-deaf." He added that
“The UK’s tourism industry already sits at the bottom of the table for international price competitiveness. Further taxation on visitors will only slow down the industry’s recovery, an industry that is the country’s second-largest service export, second only to financial services."
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