Founding Members:
CIBT (Founding Member)
G3 Visas (Founding Member)
Travel Document Systems (Founding Member)
Travisa Visa Service (Founding Member)
Visa Exchange (Founding Member)
Passport and Visa Services Members:
 
.
Associate Members:
IntelService Center (Charter Member)
.

 

ASSOCIATION OVERVIEW

In the Spring of 2006, the NAPVS Board decided to increase the association's efforts to advocate our industry's need to submit more passport applications with Passport Services and address important operational issues with Passport Services as they occurred. These increased efforts resulted in NAPVS retaining a Washington lobbyist for the travel industry.

Recent Accomplishments
Since the Spring of 2006, NAPVS significantly increased the industry’s visibility among the public, federal policy makers, and travel industry to strengthen our advocacy capability.

Secured Travel Industry Support: NAPVS secured strong letters of support for the services our industry provides and the need for Passport Services to increase the daily applications individual firms can submit from the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), the National Business Travel Association, The Cruise Lines International Association, The Travel Industry Association, and the Travel Business Roundtable. These letters were sent to the then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services, Frank Moss.

Further in March of this year, ASTA sent a letter of support to the new Assistant Secretary Ann Barrett encouraging Passport Services to increase the number of applications our firms can submit. The Travel Industry Association and the Travel Industry Roundtable sent out a press release on the backlog at Passport Services and recommended the agency make increased use of our firms to handle this current heavy demand.

Please Note: Passport services companies are limited in the number of daily applications they can submit on behalf of their customers to the U.S. Passport Agency. These limitations are placed on individual companies by the passport agency. Requests by the industry to increase these limits have been denied by the agency.

Because of the increasing citizen demand for passports, many passport services companies now have their daily allotment booked for days if not a week or two in advance. Please give yourself enough lead time in your travel plans to be able to use the services of our member companies, and don't be discouraged if the first few firms you contact are unable to meet your travel requirements. Any of our member firms are able to help citizens from any part of the country as long as over night delivery service is available.

Met and Talked with Passport Services Leadership: Personal meetings along with regular phone conversations and e-mail exchanges have occurred over the past year to present our industry’s need for increased slots. NAPVS has interacted with the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services Ann Barrett, the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Maura Harty, the assistant regional director for Chicago, the Regional Director in Houston, the operations manager in Los Angeles, and the national passport operations manager.

Changed Local Passport Services Policies and Procedures: Our activities above have resulted in the following:

  • Houston agreeing to accept next day applications,
  • San Francisco allowing same days,
  • LA agreeing in April to open a second window so that all firms could get their daily applications submitted before the closing time,
  • Chicago agreeing to implement a 2 week grace period before implementing the new, reduced slot allocations, and
  • The National Hand Carry Procedures initially were to be presented as final rules at the February 22 meeting. After submitting comments before the meeting on the 22nd, officials at the 22nd meeting stated they would accept comments and consider making changes. One example of a change recommended by NAPVS and accepted by Passport Services was removing the restriction that only one person could submit applications for one company to instead allowing one person to submit applications for multiple companies as long as that person is properly registered with the local office as representing multiple firms.

A Resource for the National Media: With the problems Passport Services has had with the heavy volume has come national media attention, and the media is increasingly turning to NAPVS to explain the passport rules and the services our industry can provide American citizens to obtain expedited passports. NAPVS and its web site have been mentioned in such National Media Outlets as the New York Times and USA Today.

A Source for New Customer Leads: The NAPVS web site is becoming a source where Americans can go to and get a list of firms with links to their web sites. In addition to the NAPVS web site’s address being mentioned in news reports, the site is also featured on the Travel Industry Association’s web site, www.getapassportnow.com, launched in December 2006.

Meetings with Key Congressional Staff: NAPVS has met with key House and Senate staff responsible for overseeing the operations and funding of the State Department and Passport Services. Our briefing of the staff in the Fall gave them a heads up on possible problems that could result from the WHTI. We are now following up with this staff on how our industry can be a more helpful resource to Passport Services during periods of heavy demand.

Future Activities for 2007: These efforts over the past year improved the association’s ability to advocate the need to increase the daily number of applications individual firms can submit and to seek improvements in the operations and procedures of the local regional offices. For the rest of this year, NAPVS intends to conduct the following:

  • Send a detailed letter to Passport Services on a number of operational procedures resulting from the new National Hand-Carry Procedures that affect the efficiency and effectiveness of our industry and Passport Services in meeting the expedited passport services demand for American citizens,
  • Advocate setting up a national office or center to expressly service expedited services in order to increase the number of national daily applications firms can submit by 3000 – 5000, and
  • Meet with congressional staff of House and Senate appropriations committees to provide funding for a national expedited services office,

Robert L. Smith, Jr.
Executive Director
301-650-2321
rsmith@napvs.org

Address
8403 Colesville Road
Silver Spring, MD 20910

 

For an application form and information on how to join NAPVS please click here.