U.S. Ambassador Garcetti Wants More Americans Traveling to India

29.03.2024 - 02:09 / skift.com / Justin Dawes / Eric Garcetti

The first time that Eric Garcetti stayed at the U.S. Embassy in India was during his college years. A friend’s father had been appointed the U.S. Ambassador, and Garcetti was invited to join on a trip. He had no idea that the embassy would become his home years later.

Garcetti, who was confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to India in 2023, shared that story and more during a conversation with Skift CEO Rafat Ali at the Skift India Summit March 13. Garcetti served as the mayor of Los Angeles from 2013 to 2022.

Garcetti’s detailed his personal connection with India, efforts in promoting U.S.-India relations, and discussions on tourism, visas, and more.

Here are some of Garcetti’s thoughts on those topics, edited for length and clarity. Watch the full interview below.

Garcetti: So I first came to India — Delhi was the first stop — in 1985. I was 14 years old. My sister is two years older. And I came here because my parents, they had met in the travel industry. They raised us with an ethic that if they ever had a nickel or a dime more, they didn’t put into a nicer car or a nicer house. They would send us on trips, not vacations, but trips. And so they brought us here and this place captured my heart. I loved it. We went to Delhi, Bombay, Johntinolora, Barnarsi, Jipru, Udaipor, saw kind of the highlights.

Garcetti: I came back when I was 19 because my college roommate said, “My father has just become the U.S ambassador to India. Do you want to go to India?” So my second trip was actually staying at the U.S. embassy here with an ambassador, never dreaming that one day I’d actually be in that position.

Garcetti: For any embassy, it might be sexy to do diplomacy and defense deals and this and that, but really what our bread-and-butter is, is visas. So I’ve really dived into this, and President Biden said to me, “Can you work hard to bring down the visa wait time?” I don’t know this for sure, but I bet it’s the only time a United States president has told an ambassador, please work on visa issues. Because we all have Indian friends who all day long are lighting up our emails, our phones, our social media handles.

Garcetti: I’m very proud of what we’ve done in less than a year here. We increased by 60-plus percent the number of visas that we adjudicated and gave out last year, a brand new record. And we reduced by 75% the wait time. It’s now more like about 250 [days] for new visas.

And remember, there’s 5 million Indians that already have visas that can travel and come back, and those are usually good for a good decade. We’ve brought those times down by really building out our facilities and getting more out of the same number of people.

Garcetti: If you had to describe the U.S.-India relationship, and it was