You can find general information on visa applications under "Venue and Travel" on our Website.

We have discussed the issues of hotel cancellation fees in the event that visa applications do not go through and reached the following conclusions.

(1)	If your application for a visa has been denied, ACL03 will pay the hotel cancellation fee (10% of hotel charges).
(2)	However, we hope that (1) will apply only to exceptional cases. That is, the 10% cancellation fee will not be charged if the cancellation is made earlier than 7 days prior to your arrival date. We expect participants to cancel as soon as possible when they are informed that their visa application has been denied.
(3)	As you may guess, if participants try to make hotel reservations individually, hotels may not confirm their reservations in the event that you are from a SARS affected region. Our official travel agent has made block bookings of hotels in advance and is quite confident that it will be able to secure hotels for you. Therefore, we strongly recommend booking your hotel through the official travel agent of ACL03 via our Website.
(4)	We would like to assist you with your visa application as much as possible. When you apply for your visa at your local Japanese Consulate, you will receive a confirmation form with an ID number on it. We need this number to monitor what's going on with your visa application procedures in case problems occur. Please let the secretary of the conference (Anri Manabe) know your ID number and whether or not you have received a visa and keep in as close of contact with her as possible. In particular, if you are informed that your application has been refused, we expect you to inform us immediately.
(5)	As for cancellation of registration for the conference, we will apply the cancellation policy indicated on our Website (under SARS Policy). If you can prove that your visa application has been denied, we will not charge the cancellation fee.

Time is running out. Please apply for a visa as soon as possible.

I hope these arrangements will help you in your difficult situation.

Local Organizing Committee, ACL2003