Schengen visa delay for UAE Residents causes them to explore cheaper, cooler alternatives

With difficulties in getting Visas for Schengen countries, UAE’s high-end travelers are made to choose Asia and visa-friendly countries as their next generation while low-budget travelers are going to budget-friendly Asian and South Asian countries this summer.

With the summer holiday travel season, it has now become almost impossible for residents of the UAE to secure an appointment slot to get visas to any of the Schengen countries.

Residents who applied for the visa for the European region some months back will be able to travel during their summer holidays.

Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Latvia, Slovania and the Saudi of city Abha are some of the new places that industry officials have indicated are now fashionable this summer.

The more prosperous travelers are preferring Bali, Turkey, and Maldives.

Raheesh Babu the current COO of Musafir travels, revealed that such customers are looking at visiting destinations that have easier visa regulations for UAE visitors.

“We are getting more tractions to Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore Turkey and CIS countries because appointment is easy, On an average people are going for four days and five nights stay,” responded Babu.

He said that it is the case because air fares to home country of most expatriates are relatively high and they prefer nearby places like Salalah and Abha in the region.

Musafir also has an exclusive program for Schengen countries to help local travelers in getting visa for visiting European countries for touristic purposes.

Outbound travel increases in the region as people seek cooler places. As per the latest data released by Iata on Wednesday, Middle Eastern airlines saw a 9.7 percent year-on-year development in demand in May, outsmarting capacity growth of 9 percent year-on-year.

Most of this traffic is highly concentrated in Asia because travel through routes to the Middle East is about 32 per cent above the 2019 level, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Reena Philip, a General Manager for operations at AirTravel Enterprises noted that people are opting for countries that do not require a strict procedure when issuing visas, such as Việt Nam, Cambodia, Hong kong, and Malaysia that allow for visa on arrival or no problem at all.

“Sri Lanka also seems to be popular now, then there are exotic destinations like Bali, Maldives, Japan is also a popular destination but we have some issues with e-Visa now,” she said.

Philip went on to explain further that, there are no Schengen region slots till September 2024, except for some folks that might cancel their slots.