Sharp decline in Chinese tourists to SA
SA’s tourism industry, reeling from more stringent visa regulations, has shown a sharp drop in the number of Chinese tourists in the first quarter of this year.
Only 19,104 Chinese tourists visited SA, 38% down on the same period last year, statistician-general Pali Lehohla said yesterday. The total number of tourists dipped 5.9% to 2.29-million.
But Mr Lehohla said it was not clear what lay behind it. “We have never seen such as sharp decline from one country ever. We don’t know what caused it — if it is the drop in the Chinese economy or that they feared Ebola.”
There have been no confirmed cases of Ebola in SA since two were reported in 1996, but perceptions of the entire continent were affected during the outbreak in West Africa late last year.
Members of SA’s tourism sector have tried to lobby the government to get it to revise visa regulations, which it says contributed to the major decline in tourist arrivals from key source markets.
According to Grant Thornton Advisory Services, the sector is entering its first serious crisis. It attributes the decline in overseas arrivals to a number of factors deterring travellers from SA, including the Ebola pandemic in West Africa, economic slowdown in some source countries and the implementation of new immigration rules.
The visa regulations that have irked the tourism sector include the requirement for anyone travelling to and from the country with children under the age of 18 to produce unabridged birth certificates, and that anyone applying for a visa to visit SA had to appear in person so that biometric information could be captured.
The effect of the rules will only be evident later this year, Mr Lehohla said.
The interministerial committee on migration — set up to review the “unintended consequences” for tourism of the visa requirements and to improve enforcement of the regulations by the Department of Home Affairs — will meet today.
Last year China was in the top 10 countries producing tourists for SA with 82‚905 arrivals. The UK was top of the list with 401‚914. With Bloomberg, RDM wire