Consul General backs visa awareness campaign

British Consul General John Hawkins has backed his department's attempts to raise awareness of new UK biometric visa requirements.

The British Government's visa department, UKvisas, opened new biometric visa application centres (VACs) in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in September, in an attempt to make the new process easier for UAE residents.

Since September UAE residents have been required to attend a VAC to supply biometric data and complete the relevant paperwork, before their passport is sent to the British Embassy for their application to be considered, with the Embassy hoping to return a decision within 24 hours.

"We've been contacting all of our regular clients and customers and encouraging them to tell everyone, and in addition to that there's a campaign in the press, called UK OK," said Hawkins.

"That links people in and gives them a lot of information on the new services, but also links them to a website that will give them all the information about what we're trying to do."

Hawkins added that the press campaign would continue and people would focus on the issue more now the VACs were properly up and running.

"It's the beginning not the end of the process. We hope and expect that word will get round by word of mouth about the new service and how it's running and we hope that we'll get a positive reaction because the whole aim of the operation is to improve the service for our clients," he said.

Hana Abdullah, media and trade relations executive for Visit Britain, the organisation responsible for raising awareness of the new requirements amongst the regional travel trade, explained that a lot is being done but that ultimately it was the job of the agents themselves to ensure that everyone was aware of the changes.

"We've been notifying people on our sales calls and Virgin Atlantic is sending out leaflets that are prepared for that purpose to all the travel trade, but it's the job of the travel agents themselves to actually inform their staff, because we can inform particular agents, but we can't inform everyone."

And despite having to make a few changes to local population will welcome the new system, according to Abdullah.

"The UAE nationals used to send a driver to pick up their visa and this has to change, which some people may find inconvenient, but I think with time it'll be fine," she said. "I think people are welcoming everything that has to do with security now. It makes them feel safer whilst travelling when they see some security measures being taken."

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