Visa laws blamed for drop in tourism
Failure to respond to Ebola crisis also kept visitors away
OCEAN BLUES: Durban remains a popular destination for local tourists CHANGES to South Africa’s Immigration Act have been blamed for the sudden, drastic drop in the numbers of tourists from the world’s fastest-growing tourism markets, China and India.
On the ground, the effects may be difficult to spot. V&A Waterfront spokeswoman Emma King said over the 2014 festive season the popular Cape Town attraction saw 100 000 visitors a day, with foreigners accounting for a quarter of them.
“All our hotels were fully booked, with some running waiting lists,” she said.
The problem, according to David Frost, CEO of the Southern African Tourism Services Association, is that while the number of European travellers to South Africa — most of whom will not require a visa — may be growing, India and China offered massive growth on a compound basis, far in excess of growth in mature markets.
Chinese arrivals dropped 50% in the last quarter of 2014. Those from India were down 15%. South Africa is missing a trick.
“What home affairs has proposed is that foreign visitors need to visit application centres in person to apply for visas, for the collection of biometric data. China and India are big geographically, which means a lot of internal travel for applicants to just get a visa,” Frost said.
“Currently home affairs has only two application centres in China. They have promised to open lots, but that’s a sub-optimal situation and the department’s argument — that the Chinese will pay for these centres — is disingenuous.”
According to Frost, it makes more sense to collect information when travellers arrive in the country. Home affairs agreed, but would not do this.
“What happens is that in India and China the market is controlled by tour operators, who are now not including South Africa in their brochures because of the visa difficulty,” he said.
Instead “easier” destinations like Australia, Senegal, Tanzania or Kenya were promoted.
Frost said it was not just the visa situation that was keeping travellers away. Failure to provide a swift and coherent message from the minister of tourism — rather than deferring to the Health Ministry — about Ebola led to many markets becoming spooked. A 37% drop in visitors from Brazil was attributed mainly to fears about Ebola.
Frost said the government had noted the concerns of the tourism industry over the legislative changes on visas, but it had failed to act quickly.
“It took us three months to get an appointment with the minister of home affairs [Malusi Gigaba] after the changes were announced, and even though he NOT ON THE BUCKET LIST: Despite attractions like Cape Town’s Two Oceans Aquarium, foreign tour operators are promoting ‘easier’ destinations than South Africa said a task team would look into the issue and President [Jacob] Zuma announced a review in his state of the nation address, we still have no idea what the terms of reference will be and when these panels will formally meet,” he said.
“If we don’t put these measures on ice until the outcome, the only thing we’ll be reviewing is the damage to the industry.”
Home affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said there appeared to be a misunderstanding about what Gigaba had meant. “He set up a stakeholder group for visa regulations which is not the same thing. That is about trying to work together with a number of companies that work in tourism to try to find each other,” he said.
“It’s an ongoing process. When the president said ‘review’, I don’t think he meant he wanted it the next day. That’s what we’re currently undertaking. You want the process to start and end, and that’s not going to happen.”
Stakeholders would continue to meet because regulations kept changing; for example, the Tourism Business Council and “some other tourism agencies” would be meeting later this month, Tshwete said.
Otto de Vries, CEO of the Association of Southern African Travel Agents, said the changes in legislation affecting travel should have no direct impact on domestic tourism.
But he added: “The inability of home affairs to consistently deliver unabridged birth certificates within the time frames they have committed to may lead to South African families being forced to cancel international trips.”
Tourism South Africa statistics show that in the last quarter of 2014 there was a 14% increase in the number of local trips taken by South Africans compared with the same period the previous year, up to 8.2 million.
KwaZulu-Natal was the most visited province with 21% of travellers, although its share declined 6% from 2013.
Limpopo followed with 20% of travellers, then the Eastern Cape with 17% and Gauteng with 14%. Accessibility and pricing may have been key factors in these figures.
The Western Cape recorded just 9% of domestic tourist trips in the last quarter of 2014.