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Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

arunraghavan.net

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#151

Post by 2143 »

probably_wrong wrote: post #108

I'd like to point out a case that the author has politely left out: that some conference organizers truly believe that if you were a good researcher then you would have moved to North America and/or Europe. And viceversa. I know plenty of researchers from South America for whom COVID was a godsend as it allowed them to attend three virtual conferences for the price of one and where their virtual experience didn't mak…

And I'd like to point out that even if I'm physically in, say Canada, I might still need a visa to go to Germany.

Unless there's a clause somewhere that says people who have a visa for Canada can enter Germany visa-free — some countries actually do that.

For example, UAE (the country where Dubai is) normally requires visa for Indian citizens, but if you're an Indian citizen with a valid US visa, then you're eligible for visa-on-arrival for UAE[1]:

> All Indian citizens holding U.S. visas, green cards, U.K Resident Permits, or EU resident permits can receive entry visa upon arrival to UAE valid for 14 days for a charge of AED 100.

[1] https://www.uae-embassy.org/visas-services/visas-for-non-us-...

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#152

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

pandaman wrote: post #101
i_no_can_eat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

When you arrive to another country's border you need to state the purpose of your visit to a border control officer. If you say "conference" - you may not be allowed in because your visa is for another purpose, if you say "tourism" you lie to a government officer, which may result in various penalties according to the local laws.

I have a question. How does "break local laws" work?

I applied to a tourism Visa in say Netherlands or uk for 2 weeks.

After 5 days, I attend a "conference" of say 2 hours or something. Is it like the man in the suit sends a call to the home ministry who sends a Hollywood style swat team or the American ice agents to drag you out of the border ?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#153

Post by jcarrano »

While I empathize with him and think it's ridiculous that he has to jump though so many hoops just to get a 3-dat visa, his complains should be addressed towards his own government and the EU who are the ones that should negotiate this sort of things.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#154

Post by xenophonf »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #119
xenophonf wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference? In the U.S.A., lying on a government form is illegal, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 . I can't imagine other countries treating that differently.

Is it necessarily lying? If you go to a conference for a hobby that's tourism, right?

That changes the parameters of the hypothetical. Your original hypothetical was explicitly about misrepresenting the purpose of one's visit to a country, which one should not do because that's illegal. *OBVIOUSLY*.

Whether attending a conference for a hobby counts as a vacation trip or a business trip would be a question for the destination country's consular affairs office.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#155

Post by sampo »

londgine wrote: post #140
tough wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on twitter seems to think this is the -end- of American tourism for Europe, funny how just bringing the same standards suddenly makes us a no-visiting place. FFS

It's a power game. Presumably less Americans visit places that require visas since there are enough places that don't. So Americans may not want to go to Europe as much. Currently plenty of European tourists go to America, so maybe that doesn't bother them as much. Pick a third world country like Jamaica. Americans can go there visa free, and Jamaica wants Americans to continue to come, so it stays visa free. However…

Maybe someone could analyze from 2009-2010 data, did the introduction of ESTA have any effect on how much Europeans traveled to the US.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#156

Post by martin8412 »

arunarunarun wrote: post #135
csomar wrote: post #128

Here is something conferences can do: run the conference in a visa-easy country. These usually happen to be: 1. Cheap and 2. Welcoming because they need the conference economic activity. Of course this is unlikely to happen because the companies running these conferences are mostly based in the EU/USA/UK and would not bother with the inconvenience.

Author of the post here. Logistically, it's a _lot_ harder for a person/team to organise a conference in a location they don't live in. There's logistics of venue, payments to vendors if you're organising food/travel/hotels, you might have volunteers for registration, information, etc. and it's easiest to find those in your local community. And finances across borders are anothe huge wrinkle. It's not impossible, but…

Not to mention that it might be difficult to attract attendees if it's not a somewhat exciting location.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#157

Post by KineticLensman »

nirbheek wrote: post #95
i_no_can_eat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

Yes, there are two problems: 1. You are misrepresenting the purpose of your visit and you can get deported and/or barred from entering the country. For example, you can be stopped and asked for your passport at any time (this has happened to me multiple times, even though technically it's against Schengen rules). 2. Visiting for 2-3 days makes sense for a conference, but it makes no sense for a vacation and you will…

Yes, I got caught out for misrepresenting my reason for visiting Canada once. My UK company provided tech support to UK government organisations and routinely sent people to Canada as part of this contract. All fine. They then sent me out to provide similar support to a Canadian govt org with the paperwork they provided to people attending conferences or sales meetings, etc. The immigration officers spotted the difference when they asked me a couple of simple questions that I answered naively. I was threatened with arrest and deportation unless I presented with the correct docs in 24 hours. It took me three days to get the right paperwork from the guys back home but because I was obviously a clueless techie being messed around by corporate the immigration people were okay with this.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#158

Post by baybal2 »

distant_hat wrote: post #147
nirbheek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for tourism than to attend a conference or for business. You need to supply fewer documents for a tourist visa, there's lesser scrutiny, and in many countries you're more likely to get a longer-duration visa (6 months rather than exact duration) for tourism than f…

This is not always true and depends on things like other visas on your passport, how often do you travel abroad and so on. For people who are traveling for the first time outside India compared to those who have other first world country stamps things can be very different. The first time I visited Germany from India (with an invite from a university there), I got an exactly 6 day multiple entry visa which might have…

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#159

Post by pc86 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #146
pc86 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

I suggest you take a step back and think about how your comments come across so as not to unintentionally come off more harsh than you want.

In fact what I was replying to was someone saying it was an event organizer's "duty" to write invitation letters for conference attendees for Visa purposes, which it is objectively not. The country is irrelevant, the economic development of the country is irrelevant.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#160

Post by otikik »

gruez wrote: post #102
LastWeekendWas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Severely embarrassing the US government? Or maybe just providing free high quality heath care to all its citizens? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba ; The World Bank acknowledges that Cuba's life expectancy at birth exceeds that of the United States

You should at least do a search before making a snarky comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Sponsors_of_Terrorism_(U...

I don't think that link reinforces the position you seem to think it reinforces.
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