Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO of the Tourism Business Council (TBC), says visa reforms gazetted last week that make it easier to visit South Africa will be a major boost for tourism, economic growth and jobs.
“It will be a far more streamlined process with a lot less paperwork and red tape. You must remember that in tourism people are not going to wait. If there’s a backlog and you don’t get your visa you just go to another country.”
A look at how many visa applications are received and how many are adjudicated on time and issued, illustrates what would-be visitors have been up against, he says.
“We need to change that experience. We invest a lot of money in marketing, and when someone is in our net we can’t be losing them because it takes so long to issue a visa.”
The fact that South Africa is attracting only 90,000 tourists a year from the “potentially massive markets” of China and India speaks to a visa system that is not fit for purpose, Tshivhengwa says.
Australia, with far less to offer, is attracting between 1.2-million and 1.4-million tourists from China, which South Africa should be easily able to equal. “If we get our act together and implement these visa reforms and compete properly in those markets, we’ll put a big dent on unemployment in South Africa.”
We need to massively grow the numbers from China and India, those are key growth markets
— Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, Tourism Business Council CEO
The TBC is having discussions with the department of home affairs about a “trusted tour operator scheme”, which he says would be a game changer — it would allow tour operators, rather than the department, to issue visas. b This would drastically reduce the amount of paperwork involved in bringing tour groups to South Africa and accelerate the process.
“It will deal with the blockages we’ve had through not having enough people to issue visas. If we do this right it will make getting visas easier and quicker.”
The proposal was taken to home affairs minister Leon Schreiber by the TBC and tourism minister Patricia de Lille just over two months ago and the response was “very positive”, he says. The goal is to have it in operation by January.
“We need tour operators handling the required paperwork and submitting it in bulk for however many people they want to bring. Thanks to the visa reforms the paperwork and red tape will be much less than it is now.”
Tshivhengwa says home affairs, under new management since the inauguration of the government of national unity, is now more receptive to such proposals. The previous government, he says, failed to see tourism’s potential to stimulate growth and job creation.
“The biggest thing is to have a shift in policy so we don’t keep trying to make the same policy better, because it doesn’t work. It’s a whole new mind shift and a whole new policy. It’s going to make life so much easier for us. Our job is to market South Africa, capture people’s interest and get them into the net so that they book. Then we must get the visas done.”
The e-visa system that the pre-GNU regime muddled around with for so long needs to be world-class so that online visa applications are adjudicated swiftly.
“We have rolled it out in China but the issue is group booking and speed of adjudication. There’s still a manual intervention. We need to fully automate the e-visa so that you apply and tomorrow you get it.”
Ultimately, the TBC wants 1-million tourists from China and 1-million from India coming to South Africa every year by 2035. “We need other markets performing too, such as Europe, the UK and the US. But we need to massively grow the numbers from China and India, those are key growth markets.”
The contribution of tourism to GDP, which was 8.6% before Covid, is still below 4%. Between 16% and 20% by 2035 is doable, Tshivhengwa thinks.
The goal is to add 2-million tourist-related jobs to the 1.5-million direct and indirect jobs flowing from the sector currently. There also needs to be growth from West and East Africa. Numbers are growing from Ghana and Kenya because of visa waivers.
“Having a better visa regime works,” he says. Among potentially millions who will benefit are so-called digital nomads.
“We’ve been saying since before Covid we need to allow people who are digital nomads to come to South Africa and work from here. It will boost our restaurants, boost the property market and many other things.”
The visa reforms at last clarify and simplify what digital nomads need to do to qualify. “That has now been solved. The minister has gazetted those requirements, so that’s done.”
It’s potentially a big growth market and will touch everything, he says. “You’re talking about someone who is living here, earning in US dollars and travelling in the country so much of that money stays here. This thing has never existed here, it’s only now that it has been gazetted. If you want to be a digital nomad and you want to stay in South Africa, now you can do so. There was no such thing as digital nomad visas, it’s only now that it’s been done.”
The next goal must be issuing long-term visas, like the US and Schengen countries do, he says.
“This is the next thing we want to move to. A lot of people would stay for longer if they didn’t have to get out of the country. We need a visa regime that allows people to come and go on the spur of the moment without having to apply again and again.”
Other discussions the council is having with home affairs are about people who already have valid visas issued by the UK, Schengen countries, Japan and Australia. “These countries have vetted them, why are we still vetting them? Why can’t we recognise those visas?”
Last week’s visa reforms are only the beginning, says Tshivhengwa. “This must lead us to other possibilities for opening up the tourism market. Home affairs needs to be an enabler of tourism, and we’re now seeing that.”
But there’s only so much even a newly energised home affairs department can do. Tourism is dependent on other departments to tackle crime, which is the No 1 deterrent, and fix roads.
“If they play their parts also it will unleash tourism in this country, which is something we desperately need.”
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