Visa rules for Chinese and Indian tourists are to be changed in an effort to encourage more travel to South Africa from those countries. This is according to Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, speaking to Bloomberg TV.
The Department of Home Affairs has previously indicated that it will introduce a Trusted Tour Operators system. These will be vetted by South African authorities and will assist with the expeditious issuing of visas for tour groups. The difficulties involved in getting visas has been a hindrance to expanding tourism from China and India.
Visa reform has helped other countries to expand their tourism markets.
“Tourism is one of South Africa’s natural advantages, it’s one of the things we should be excelling at. Yet we have seen in terms of the statistics that South Africa lags behind in terms of major source markets, China and India specifically,” said Schreiber.
He added that the Trusted Tour Operators system would not be permanent, and that an electronic travel authorisation system would be introduced.
Some 350 000 tourists arrived in South Africa from the US and the UK last year, but only 80 000 from India and 37 000 from China.