Originally Posted by
Panama Jack
So by your predictions, Jet II, the citizens of the UK, the Schengen Area, Japan, Australia and USA will be next in 2011 to be removed from the visa-on-arrival list and have to pay up to $1000 USD for a visit visa to the UAE because UAE citizens require visas to visit those countries?
I too am the national of a small country which is required to hold a visitor visa to visit countries such as Canada, the USA . . . even the UAE but that does not mean we do not provide a tourist card, on arrival, for a $5 fee because we realize that a) these countries are not going to change their policy reciprocal to ours because they have their concerns, and b) we gain so much by having visitors come to our country through their spending that putting high barriers only makes us poorer in the end.
If countries do not want to offer citizens of the UAE the same agreements for visa travel as their own citizens enjoy then surely it is up to the UAE to decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs by continuing with the arrangement.
In the case of Canada they obviously thought not.
Of course the governments of foreign states are unhappy about this. Somebody will always be unhappy about something.
No, not
foreign States - Ed Stelmach is the Premier of Alberta and thinks that the Federal Governements decision to restrict the growth in air travel simply to protect Air Canada hurts the general economy in Alberta.
And he is right.