[Tagging] visa offices tags

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 9:29 AM Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Nov 7, 2018, at 7:12 AM, Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 1) this is a commercial firm - not a government
> authority/branch/department/etc
> 2) it 'assist' people to obtain a visa
> 3) it is not at an airport/seaport/boarder
> 4) the visa is obtained before travel commences.
>
>
> It is an office you go to. You present documents, they ask questions, you
> answer, you pay a fee,
> the office fills out forms using that information provided (and they then
> send it off to an embassy/consulate)
> and then some time later you get a visa back from the office (but the visa
> itself is actually from the embassy/consulate).
>
> In the above situation, what is wrong with office=visa ? You apply to the
> office, they (usually) get you a visa.
>

Here, the Japanese consulate never accepts direct visa application and
instructs people to only submit visa applications through accredited travel
agencies.

On the other hand, many European consulates here contract a 3rd-party visa
processing company such as the aforementioned VFS Global to handle all visa
applications. These companies even have equipment to collect biometric data
such as photographs and fingerprints that will be forwarded to the
consulates together with the visa applications.

I would think that the first case should be tagged like other travel
agencies because visa handling is just one of their services (they also
arrange tours and purchase airline tickets). For the second case, they do
nothing else besides processing visa applications on behalf of the
contracting consulates. So they are not travel agencies. I think they
should indeed be tagged with something like office=visa or better yet
office=visa_processing so it is clearer.
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