South Africa will not attain the goal of attracting 15-million international visitors by 2029 unless South African Tourism (SAT) — the agency tasked with marketing the country — does its part to generate demand.
Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO of the Tourism Business Council, told Business Times at the Tourism Leadership Conference hosted by his organisation in Sun City that the private sector would continue marketing the country overseas but was limited in what it could do.
“We as the private sector will always go out and do what we are supposed to do but we’ve got limitations from a budget point of view, that’s why we’ve got the department of tourism and SA Tourism. Their job is to make sure they enable policy, and deal with the marketing, so we can take advantage of that. Are they doing enough? Right now, SA Tourism is not, and that’s a fact,” he said.
SAT was plunged into crisis after tourism minister Patricia de Lille dissolved the board that sought to take action against CEO Nombulelo Guliwe. The board has taken the her to court seeking reinstatement.
Tshivhengwa said the crisis at SAT meant the organisation could not properly execute its mandate of marketing the country and generating demand.
“If you don’t create or generate demand, that’s a problem. And whose job is it to generate demand? It’s SA Tourism. We need to make sure there’s air access, we need to make sure there’s more airlines flying into the country and on the ground we must clean up and make our country safe for tourists.”
He said the private sector had done a significant job marketing Cape Town, the Cape Winelands and the Kruger National Park, but needed help from the government and SAT to market other provinces to local and international tourists.
“We are the ones who do the selling, and the private sector will sell what sells. You're going to lose a booking when you tell someone, ‘I want you to go to Bloemfontein’, and they say, ‘I don’t know what Bloemfontein is’. Just like anybody else, whether you are selling in a restaurant or spaza shop, you stock what sells.
“What we need to do together with the public sector is make sure other experiences emerge from — and we are able to interest overseas tourists in — other areas like Limpopo, the Northern Cape and the North West.”
De Lille told the conference on Thursday the plan to boost international arrivals to 15-million by 2029 would result in the sector creating 1-million direct jobs and 1.5-million indirect jobs by 2029.
At the moment, it is responsible for 1.2-million direct and indirect jobs, and contributes 8.9% to GDP, around R659bn.
De Lille hailed the introduction of a new electronic travel authorisation (ETA) system that will allow foreigners to apply for visas via their smartphones while sitting at home — a game changer.
Using rapid biometric verification, the system can issue visas within seconds, though home affairs will delay issuance by an hour or two to allow for further security verification of the traveller
Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber unpacked the ETA system at the conference, telling attendees — many of them small- and medium-size tourism businesses — that the cutting edge e-visa system would be trialled on delegates from China, India, Indonesia and Mexico travelling to Johannesburg for the G20 summit in November.
The AI-powered ETA is a fully automated platform for individual short-stay tourist visas of up to 90 days, and will apply to those arriving at major airports such as OR Tambo International and Cape Town International.
Using rapid biometric verification, the system can issue visas within seconds, though home affairs will delay issuance by an hour or two to allow for further security verification of the traveller.
Users will first open an account through their smartphone using their cellphone numbers. The system will generate a unique user profile, making it possible for the user to apply for a visa. Users then upload a picture of themselves and scan their passports.
“You are going to be able to scan your passport in your own house and you are going to give us your face. What we do in this phase is to check, first, that your passport is authentic. We run 40 different checks on your passport to confirm that you are from India and that this is an Indian passport before us. Then we take the photo that’s on your passport and we match it to the selfie that you uploaded,” said Schreiber.
“All of this happens through your phone. You link your phone with a QR code, then you scan your face and you will move on and do the same for your passport. It will give you a thumbs-up when uploaded.”
Schreiber said the plan is for South Africa's identity system to be based on facial recognition and biometric verification. Fake picture and fingerprint uploads will automatically be blocked by the system. Once the traveller has added their contact and other details, they can submit the application.
The system will completely replace human contact in visa applications, eliminating the risk of fraudulent issuance of travel documents or bureaucratic bungles, he said.
“The beauty of this [is] there’s no person that can take this application and put it under a desk. There’s no person that can lose this application.”
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