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Streamlined effort, with more visas being issued

The flow of tourists, businessmen and students who plan to travel to Italy is a priority for the Italian diplomatic and consular network in China.

To facilitate the procedures, the Italian Embassy in Beijing and the consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou are working on a radical re-launch of the Italian visa network in China.

The Italian Embassy is doing its best to ensure that the Chinese citizens who want to come to the country are provided with plenty of support, as well as fast and agile practices.

The embassy has started complete revision of procedures to attract new visa applications and fulfill the principle of solid friendship that exists between the two nations.

When issuing a visa, the Italian Embassy works with the ultimate goal of gaining the trust of the Chinese citizens who plan to travel to Italy.

In particular, documentation made according to Schengen regulations, is the most streamlined possible, with its offices in China fully available to provide all the assistance and information that the Chinese citizens might need.

For businessmen who frequently travel to Italy, the Italian Embassy also provides multiple-entry long-term business visas.

Due to the combination of these actions started with the arrival of Ambassador Iannucci in Beijing, the number of visas issued has soared. What especially increased is the number of visas issued in areas of particular significance due to their strategic role in strengthening people-to-people relations.

The areas of emphasis include tourism and resulted in a 20 increase in group tourist visas. In the past four months, the Italian diplomatic-consular network has issued more than 37,000 tourist visas.

Even more significant increases have been recorded in study visas, which increased more than one-third in the first quarter of 2011. This is a field in which the Italian Embassy has been particularly active, and assisted by the creation of an active students office at the embassy, whose role is to guide and facilitate the departure of the Chinese students who want to go to Italy.

From (China Daily) 2011-06-02 08:01

Chinese tourists to get multi-entry visas to Japan's Okinawa

Chinese tourists will be able to visit Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa on multiple-entry visas starting July 1, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Friday.

The top government spokesman told a news conference the government's move to issue such visas aims to increase the number of individual Chinese tourists with sufficient purchasing power to boost the economic development of Okinawa.

Separately, the Japan Tourism Agency said Friday it will invite a 100-member tourism mission from China, led by Shao Qiwei, head of China's tourism administration, to visit Japan from Monday to Saturday as part of efforts to bring back tourists to Japan.

Japan saw the sharpest year-on-year fall in numbers of foreign travelers in April, with those from China dropping by 50 percent, due to the impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the radioactive leakage at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

From Xinhua, May 27, 2011
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