New visa regime on way to woo tourists

● The cabinet will completely overhaul the visa system to significantly change the selection of visa-free countries as well as implement e-visas to net a growing number of visitors from China and India.

Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom told Business Times that he and the Chinese ambassador to South Africa Lin Songtian had agreed to win a 1 million people slice of the 130-million tourists who travel outside the Asian giant every year. Over five years, this will be a tenfold increase.

Hanekom said tourist arrivals from China to South Africa took a knock because of ebola outbreaks in central and West Africa in 2015 and then dropped by 17% in 2017 after an attack on tourists who were followed and robbed on their way from OR Tambo airport. Although South Africa did not have an outbreak of the deadly ebola infection, it felt the ripple effect.

“We need two things — to ensure South Africa is no longer perceived as an unsafe country and to make it easier for Chinese people to get visas.”

Hanekom said the cabinet was assessing how the visa regime affected tourism, one of South Africa’s fastest-growing sectors. Tourists from Russia and Brazil are flocking to South Africa, partly because they don’t need visas to visit here.

The number of Brazilians visiting South Africa grew by 75% last year while Russia’s shot up by 52%.

But Chinese and Indian people suffer long waits for visas. Because those countries are so geographically large, they are not wellserved by South Africa’s insistence that visitors present themselves in person for visa interviews, said Hanekom.

China has a special dispensation where travellers can submit passports to travel agents to get group visas, but the hassle factor is too big and Hanekom says an e-visa system will soon be introduced.

The government is also investigating the effect of the unabridged birth certificate requirement which South Africa insists on for children travelling without both or one parent.

“The World Tourism Organisation has predicted that by 2020 there will be 50 million Indian travellers. It is increasing dramatically, but South Africa is a stagnant market [for inbound Indian tourists],” said Hanekom.

This may have to do with the Gupta family, say tourism officials, as the GuptaLeaks e-mails have revealed that the family was successful in ending the direct SAA flight between Mumbai and Johannesburg. The Guptas had intended to get this route gifted to India’s Jet Airways, but this plan did not take off so visitors from India to South Africa have to fly via Dubai or Addis Ababa where Ethiopian Airlines is building a significant continental hub.

And there are also challenges in processing visas to South Africa from India.

We need to ensure South Africa is no longer perceived as unsafe and to make it easier for Chinese people to get visas Derek Hanekom

Minister of Tourism