Never before have so many people applied for a visitor’s visa to Norway as in 2010. The immigration administration processed 126,000 applications, 94 per cent of which were approved. The UDI processed more visa applications than were received and the case processing time was strongly reduced.

A total of 18,000 more persons were granted a visitor's visa in 2010 than the year before. The Chinese accounted for the greatest increase; 20,300 Chinese people were granted a visitor’s visa, an increase of 81 per cent. We also received more visitors from many other countries, but the Russians were still the largest group, with four out of ten approved visitor’s visas. Other big countries in this connection were India, the Philippines and Thailand.