Indians become second-biggest group of overseas visitors to US

Indians are the second-biggest nationalities to become the largest overseas visitors to the United States of America this summer despite long waiting times for visa interviews and surging airfares. Coming only second to the UK (9.6 lakh), over 5 lakh Indians visited the US this year. A report by the US Commerce Department’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) called ‘Inbound Survey of International Air Travellers (SIAT)" says that the US Embassy processed over 10 lakh non-immigrant visa applications for Indians so far this year. This figure is almost 20 per cent more than the number of applications that were processed between 2019 and 2022. Last month the embassy said, “Indians now represent over 10% of all visa applicants worldwide, including 20% of all student visa applicants and 65% of all H & L category (employment) visa applicants.” In 2022, over 12 lakh Indians went to the US. The NTTO said, “New York (24 lakh) was the top state visited, followed by Florida (19 lakh), California (16 lakh), Nevada (5.2 lakh) and Texas (4.8 lakh).” “Estimated overall travel spending in the US was $14.9 billion, up 29.5% from the second quarter of 2022. Vacation/holiday was the main purpose of the trip, followed by visit friends/relatives and business. Shopping was the top leisure activity, followed by sightseeing, national parks/monuments, art galleries/museums and small towns/countryside,” it added. Indians are also among the leading nationalities to hold citizenship of the world’s richest nations, according to a report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report also reveals that Indians are the national group that migrates the most to OECD countries including Canada, with which it is currently engaged in a diplomatic stand-off. In the past two years, Indians have become the largest national group to gain citizenship in rich nations while Canada became the biggest host country to grant its citizenship to foreign nationals.