Imagine the following: You get invited to an important conference overseas. But to attend, you must first apply, in person, for a travel visa from the consulate of the country where the meeting is being held. Since you live in Orlando, and the nearest consulate is in Chicago, you'll need to pay for a flight and a hotel room, not to mention the $100 visa application fee—nonrefundable, even if you're turned down. It's unlikely your request will be approved the same day (it typically takes weeks if not months) so you'll have to go back again, incurring further expense. Meanwhile, you can't leave the country because the consulate is holding your travel documents.
Sound crazy? It does to us, because no American wishing to travel abroad has to go through such hassle. Yet this is exactly the situation faced by many foreigners trying to attend American meetings. Travel restrictions introduced after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are hurting international business, critics claim. And a growing number of major players in the meetings industry are pressing for reform.
"We have to fashion a national strategy that bridges the gap between open, easy business travel to the U.S. and a reasonable, sound national security strategy," says Steven Hacker, president of the International Association for Exhibition Management in Dallas, who has testified before Congress on this issue. "Right now, we aren't close to achieving this vital balance, and exhibitions and events, as well as other sectors of business, are suffering."
The Culture of "No"
It's difficult to quantify just how much impact travel restrictions and visa delays are having on meetings, since planners often don't know why their overseas attendees or presenters cancel or simply fail to show up. But some recent examples illustrate Hacker's point:
•The Fifth World Chinese Life Insurance Congress, set for August at the Hawaii Convention Center, had to be called off because of trouble arranging visas for the 3,200-plus Asian insurance providers planning to attend. The cancellation meant a loss of over $17 million for Honolulu, including 6,500 room-nights.
•Foreign physicians working at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, are advised against traveling abroad for professional conferences because of the "substantial risk" of not being allowed back into the United States. Senior Immigration Attorney Bruce Larson estimates that this affects nearly a thousand Mayo employees.
•Last year, multinational firm Ingersoll-Rand, with 45,000 employees globally, had a multimillion-dollar contract held up for months because of visa delays. The project, a $2.4-million turbine ready for delivery to China, couldn't be shipped until a team of Chinese engineers inspected it before it was disassembled for shipping; it took 12 weeks for their visas to be approved.
•The IEEE Communications Society, a unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is considering suspending domestic meetings altogether. "It's so much easier for Americans to travel that it makes more sense to send them abroad than to make our foreign members come here," says Brian Bigalke, head of meetings and conferences for the society.
"After 9/11, we've seen a culture of 'no,' " says Joanna Hedvall, a business immigration analyst at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in Washington D.C. "No one wants to be the one to let a terrorist in, so 'no' became the standard answer [to visa requests]. But people coming here for meetings are low-risk travelers, and we can't keep them out just because we don't have an efficient immigration system. It's safer to say no, but we can't sustain a vibrant economy that way."
A case in point is the Arlington, VA-based Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), producer of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which brings 130,000 attendees, 14 percent of them international, to Las Vegas annually. According to a CEA survey from June, 59 percent of foreigners needing visas who did not attend the show said they had problems applying for a visa, with 18 percent listing that as their main reason for not attending.
"We have visitors and exhibitors being told arbitrarily and at the last minute that they can't come to our show, and as a result we have to refund their money," says CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro, who has also testified before Congress on the matter. He insists that it's not a question of national security, but fear that foreigners from developing countries—in CES' case, China—will stay here, even though they can prove strong ties to their countries. These prospective attendees offer CES' American exhibitors the greatest potential for new business, yet are the most likely to be denied visas, Shapiro claims—"even if they have been repeat business visitors to the U.S. who have not violated our immigration policies or law."
Calls for Change
In May, the heads of 24 academic and scientific associations, led by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS), issued a collective statement urging the federal government to reform the visa application process. The current system, the statement warned, is "discouraging and preventing the best and brightest international students, scholars, and scientists from studying and working in the United States, as well as attending academic and scientific conferences here and abroad." In response, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have made efforts to streamline procedures, better inform applicants, and improve transparency. Wait times for appointments and visa processing are now posted on the Internet, and the State Department claims that as of September, 98 percent of all Visas Mantis cases (a type of security clearance required for people in scientific and technical fields) are cleared in less than a month.
But many analysts remain skeptical. "In our opinion, the wait times listed on the Internet are optimistic," says Elizabeth Dickson, manager of immigration services for Ingersoll-Rand. Meanwhile, at presstime new travel regulations were going into effect. As of September 30, citizens of the 27 countries that don't require visas for entry (mainly Western Europe and Canada) must now be fingerprinted and photographed as part of the US-VISIT (Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology) program, along with all other visitors. Hedvall of the AILA estimates that this will add 13 million people to the system—the State Department's own estimate is half that—and predicts significant delays at borders and points of entry. And by October 26, those same citizens must also present machine-readable passports or they too will require visas for entry.
Wendy White, director of the board on international scientific organizations for the National Academies in Washington D.C. (an umbrella group of three scientific associations that signed AAAS' statement) says she expects "serious backlash" once the US-VISIT program is extended to America's allies. She notes, "If the tables were turned, very few Americans would submit" to being interviewed, photographed, and fingerprinted—the latter now upon arrival and departure—just to attend a four-day conference overseas.
"We're seeing vast improvement in the wait times and other physical difficulties people have had obtaining visas," says White. "But the opportunity costs are still extremely high. What we don't know, and now fear, is the impact of the atmosphere we've created with these policies. How many people are saying, 'It's too Big Brother, the U.S. is no longer a welcoming country, and we don't want to go there'? In the scientific community, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that people are avoiding meetings here."
SIDEBAR
What Planners Can Do
SM spoke to organizers of meetings with significant international turnout for tips on how to help foreign attendees get here with minimal hassle. Here's what they suggested:
• As early as possible, post information on the conference's Web site about visa application procedures, fingerprinting and photographing requirements, and potential delays. This will help attendees unfamiliar with U.S. policies avoid unpleasant surprises.
• For attendees and presenters you know are legitimate, write specific letters of invitation, with information about the meeting's purpose and educational value. Such letters are often required by U.S. consulates in order to issue visas.
• Poll international attendees for personal data that can prove strong ties to their home countries. Knowing that someone is married, has children, or owns property can help overcome the presumption of intent to immigrate.
• Urge foreign attendees to apply for visas well in advance. How early depends on the organization: The National Academies recommend three to four months, but Lloyd Tran, organizer of this month's International Congress of Nanotechnology in San Francisco, suggests six or seven months.
• If your organization expects more than 100 attendees from overseas, the National Academies can register your meeting for free with the State Department. This doesn't guarantee visa approvals, but may speed things up since it lets consular officers know the gathering's legitimate. See www.nationalacademies.org/visas for more information.