Visas: check afresh 
 
by Judy Wickens, UIA
 
Requirements. Associations hold meetings, and face-to-face meetings need participants. Although nowadays registration and travel can be arranged with a click or two, obtaining visas permitting the traveller to reach the destination often takes much longer than in the past.
 
Procedures and conditions change frequently, so both organisers and participants should inquire, double-check and above all assume nothing, even if 'it's just the same event as last year'.
 
Interpretation of regulations for one country may vary from one foreign embassy to another; and waiting times may vary widely for different places of application, as may the cost. Association meeting organisers may be obliged to inform a state's authorities that they are planning a conference. They should assist visitors with general guidance, especially on the period of time the processing may take, and then should be prepared to provide formal letters of invitation or confirmation as requested, support which may be very time-consuming.
 
Applications for visas should follow the published rules as closely as possible, no more no less, as omissions or inaccuracies are very likely to provoke a rapid refusal. As well as a completed form and a passport – with the passport often required to be valid for six months after the trip – documents required frequently include a return ticket home, proof of sufficient funds, confirmation of conference registration and of a hotel booking.
 
One can reach a chicken-and-egg situation, with potential visitors reluctant to register and to book tickets until they have visas, while visas depend on proving reservations. There have been cases of fraud in which people booked for conferences to obtain visas but never appeared at the venue, which are most unhelpful to organisers of valid events.
 
For meetings in countries of Europe termed the 'Schengen Area' (named for the small Luxembourg town where the relevant treaty was signed) many nationals will not need a visa but just a passport (e.g. from North America, Australia, Schengen states). Others will require a visa, and some will require an 'airport transit visa' (ATV) in addition.
 
The list of countries (26 at the time of writing) comprising the 'Schengen Area' is nearly the same as that of the EU, but not quite: there are those in the EU but not 'Schengen' (Bulgaria, Ireland, Romania, United Kingdom) and some in 'Schengen' but not in the EU (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland). An application for such a visa must be made either to the country which is the main point of the visit or to the country in which the visitor will arrive or land. Making several applications to different countries is not advisable, total refusal is likely. Within the Schengen Area visitors can move freely, but should keep their passports to hand.
 
For conferences in the United States, participants and speakers are generally classed as 'business visitors'. Holders of passports from countries in the Visa Waiver Program do not need visas as such but must complete in advance the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA), pay a fee and receive approval. For those who do need visas the procedure involves both an administrative stage and a personal interview, with variable waiting times which can be lengthy, and then a further wait for a decision: guidance on the time can be found on embassy web sites.
 
There are numerous different types of visas and it is not always simple to discover whether a participant in an association conference requires a business or a tourist document. For each and every journey to a meeting, it is advisable to check afresh for visa or visa waiver (exemption) arrangements between the country of citizenship and that to be visited. The days have long passed when travel agents provided visas along with one's air-tickets as a matter of course.