Skift Take
It's no coincidence that a wave of eased visa restrictions ended in the same year in which more than one billion tourists crossed borders for the first time ever.
A record 1.035 billion tourists traveled around the world in 2012. As the number of tourists crossing borders grew each year, the restrictions and costs that keep them out of certain nations decreased. There are still those countries that seem near impossible to enter for even the most adventurous traveler, but overall, visa requirements have lightened in recent years.
Over the last four years, the number of tourists that needed a traditional visa to visit a destination went from 77 percent to 63 percent. The past two years, in particular, have seen a wave of visa restrictions lifted. Forty-three destinations eased their visa policies from traditional applications to eVisas, visas on arrival, or eliminated their visa requirements all together.
Countries ease visa procedures in anticipation of significant growth in certain tourism markets. They want to make i
