South Africa seeks to woo India, China tourists with visa reform

By Jennifer Zabasajja and Antony Sguazzin

South Africa plans to ease visa rules for visitors from India and China within days to lure tourists from the world’s two most populated nations, who have been deterred by red tape.

Travelers from many Western nations including the US and UK don’t need visas for short visits to South Africa. Tourists from India and China — who are part of the BRICS group — require authorization before they travel, which is a deterrent.

The Department of Home Affairs will implement a so-called Trusted Tour Operators system from January, Leon Schreiber, South Africa’s home minister said. The tour operators, which will be vetted by the African nation’s authorities, will be responsible for the tour groups from the two countries. 

Easier visa rules have helped countries including Thailand attract Indian tourists. Nations such as Peru and Morocco are opening or expanding travel offices in Indian cities. Saudi Arabia, which says it wants 7.5 million Indian tourists annually by 2030, up from 1.5 million last year, has opened visa offices, and introduced a four-day stopover visa for Indians on long-haul flights with transfers in the kingdom.

“Tourism is one of South Africa’s natural advantages, it’s one of the things we should be excelling at,” Schreiber said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “Yet we have seen in terms of the statistics that South Africa lags behind in terms of major source markets, China and India specifically.”

The government eventually plans to move to an electronic travel authorization system, the minister said, adding that the Trusted Tour Operators program is temporary. 

The changes to tourism visas are part of wider reforms to South Africa’s legislation and attitude toward migration. Since Schreiber took the post at the end of June he has eased work permit laws to simplify a byzantine system that had resulted in processing times exceeding a year. The aim is to tackle a chronic skills shortage in the country.

The difficulty in obtaining tourism visas is reflected in the country’s visitor statistics. 

Last year about 350,000 tourists each arrived from US and the UK, as well as 245,000 from Germany, according to Statistics South Africa. Arrivals from India totaled about 80,000, while 37,000 came from China.

“We believe that that’s low hanging fruit that can really boost the South African economy,” Schreiber said.