Business Model
Given concerns about increasing debt Congress is not likely to fund the construction of more consulates. However there is an opportunity for a public/private partnership, i.e. private investors funding the construction of the videoconferencing visa application centers in China. The investors would contract with the State Department approved vendor for offsite services in China to perform the biometric data collection (fingerprinting) and connecting visa applicants via videoconference for their interview with a consular officer located in the embassy or a consulate. The vendor would adhere to State Department specified security requirements and operating procedures.
The investors would be able to recover their investment in each center from the fee (e.g. $100) paid by visa applicants for the privilege of interviewing locally by videoconference versus having to travel to Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. This assumes many visa applicants would prefer to avoid the cost of travel and loss of time they would have to incur in order to be interviewed and fingerprinted at a consulate location. Simply “localizing” the visa application process will increase demand for travel to the US.
Private sector funded “Videoconferencing Visitor Centers”
- Investor takes on the risk of generating a sufficient number of visa applicants willing to pay the fee for the ability to be interviewed in their home city via videoconference.
- Leverage site based ad revenue with videoconferencing fee revenue to create a combined videoconferencing visa interview/USA focused visitor center
- Visitor center site based ad revenue reduces capital risk of building videoconferencing interview centers
- Ad revenues support larger facilities in premier locations
- Private ownership eliminates government reciprocity issues and funding issues (i.e. not a consulate location)
- Centers contract with State Department approved Global Support Strategy (GSS) vendor for China in order to meet State mandated GSS security requirements**
** State Department Global Services Strategy (GSS) History
- 2008: Private industry vendors bid to provide support services for nonimmigrant and immigrant visa operations at United States consulates, embassies and approved “offsite” locations abroad, including:
- Public inquiry services and appointment services
- Fee collection services
- Biometric enrollment (fingerprinting), document delivery and data collection services
- 2010: Computer Science Corporation and CGI’s sub-contractor VFS Global become State Department-approved GSS “offsite” vendors
Videoconferencing Visitor Center Operations:
- Assumptions:
- 2 stations/center equipped with videoconferencing equipment and GSS- required biometric equipment staffed for two 6-hour shifts per station 6 days/week by a State Department approved GSS vendor
- Station capacity: 240 interviews/day (assumes 12 interviews per hour or 72 interviews per 6 hour shift X 2 = 144/station/day)
- Annual station capacity (6 days/wk X 50wks X 144) = 43,200 interviews
- Assume station demand is 47% of capacity = 20,304 interviews/yr/station (approximately 400/wk/station X 2 = 800/wk/Center)
- Annual Interviews/Center = 40,000+ interviews/yr (800/wk X 50wks)
- Assume 100 visitor centers
- 4 Million New Visitors to U.S. each year
