UN Tourism has released its latest Tourism Visa Openness report on global visa policies, revealing continuous shifts in international travel regulations.

The report sheds light on the evolving landscape of travel facilitation. It includes the Tourism Visa Openness Index that measures the degree to which destinations facilitate tourism and how open a country is in terms of visa facilitation for tourism purposes. Also, mobility scores are included to indicate to the extent to which citizens around the world are subject to visa policies, as well as an in-depth analysis of the reciprocity of visa policies.

Key findings include:

Return to Pre-pandemic openness: Destinations’ openness to international travel has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels following the lifting of COVID-19 related travel restrictions. As a consequence of the pandemic, new forms of travel facilitation, such as “nomadic visas”,also appeared.

Decline in traditional visa requirements: Fewer people worldwide now require a traditional visa to travel falling from 77% in 2008 to 59% in 2018, and then to 47% in 2023.

Visa-exempt travel: 21% of the world population do not need any form of visa, an increase from 17% in 2008 and 20% in 2018.

Visa on arrival: 14% of the world population can apply for visa on arrival, an increase from 6% in 2008. and 15% in 2018.

eVisas: 18% of the world population can apply for eVisas, an increase from 3% in 2013 and 7% in 2018.

For more information, see www.unwto.org

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok