Travel agencies in Beijing say that the visa application for tourist groups to the United Stated has been launched on a trial basis and seven travel agencies have been approved to offer this service.

The seven travel agencies are China International Travel Service, China Travel Service, China Youth Travel Service, China Comfort Travel Service, Citic Travel Service and China Ocean International Travel Service in Beijing, and Classical Holidays International Travel Service in Tianjin.

A representative from the U.S. Embassy in China disclosed that if the visa for travel groups is formally launched, it will consider expanding this service to their consulates in other cities in China. Right now the service is only available to travel groups consisting of six people or more and it requires that these tourists must have a visa record to Europe, Australia or Japan in the last year.

At present, those travel groups will still need to interview face to face for the visa, and the U.S. Embassy offers fixed quotas of interviews for these travel agencies each day. Different from individual visas, those tourists who get group visas can only leave for America with their travel groups at a specified time, and must cancel the visa when they come back. In addition, travel agencies should provide their routes, tickets and hotel reservations information to the U.S. Embassy for booking an interview.

Chinese travelers are hoping that this trial service means that America-bound trips will be completely opened to Chinese citizens soon.