Website: Canada to open visa section at Prague embassy

The Canadian embassy in Prague will open a visa section before Christmas, the news website lidovky.cz reported on Wednesday, quoting sources at both the embassy and the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Officials are due to begin processing visas on December 21, meaning Czechs wishing to travel to Canada will no longer have to apply at the country’s embassy in Vienna. Czech citizens need visas to enter Canada since Ottawa re-introduced a visa regime in the summer, following a sharp rise in the number of Czech Romanies applying for asylum there. Tomio Okamura, spokesperson for the Association of Czech Travel Agents, said that while 30,000 Czechs visited Canada last year, that figure has fallen by a third in 2009.

Author: Ian Willoughby