Olympics is a distant destination for Mumbai

Stringent visa regulations and expensive procedures irk city fans

Mumbaikars who would like to have a first hand experience of Beijing Olympics are now increasingly curtailing their visit to Beijing, thanks to the stringent visa regulations adopted by the Chinese embassies.  Irked by the time-consuming rules and regulations, many have dropped their plan to visit Beijing.

Latesh Kumar a businessman from Powai, is an avid sports fan and be it Grand Prix or IPL matches, he likes them live. He attended Moscow olympics in 1980 and is filled with nostalgia.  However, after preparing for two and a half months for his Beijing trip in August, he finally gave up as he found the visa procedures too stringent to bear.  “The Chinese authorities have made it difficult and expensive for fans like us to go to Beijing and in the last two to three months everything has changed,” says he.  “Earlier I used to get my visa in a day to visit China.  But now it takes five days.  I would better watch it on my TV,” he adds.

According to passengers like him and even the travel agents the procedures for getting tourist visa have been also made cumbersome and expensive.  To get the visa a passenger has to show his two-way flight tickets and hotel booking vouchers. “Now the passenger is asked to book accommodation in a branded hotel which comes anywhere to $ 120 per day,” says Kumar.

But what if a passenger does not stay in a hotel.  “There are passengers who want to stay in apartments.  But even they are asked to get original hotel reservation confirmation,” says Zakkir Ahmed, committee member, Travel Agents Federation of India(TAFI).

Moreover, the embassy does not accept hotel reservation vouchers given to the customer.  “They want the hotel in China itself to send them a confirmation e-mail which is in Chinese language.  Now the hoteliers are charging customers extra money to send confirmation to the embassy in India,” says Nandita Bedi, Director, Vibrant Tours and Travels.  “And getting a confirmation from them even after paying the extra money involves indefinite wait as they do not understand the urgency of visa,” she adds.
But the agony does not stop here.  “The person has to pay to translate the communication from chinese to english received by the embassy from China. They charge us Rs 500 per page,” says Kumar.        
s_naveeta@dnaindia.net