New Department of Home Affairs immigration regulations have had a devastating effect on the growth in visitors to SA and will go on harming tourism until government changes its stance.
Comair CEO Erik Venter expressed this view at his company’s celebration of 20 years of franchise partnership with British Airways.
"The changes have had a serious effect on tourism in SA," he said. " We have been talking to tour operators in China‚ Europe and America about this. They have been advising clients not to come to SA.
"SA is very much advertised by word of mouth. We don’t have strong advertising in other countries. Our tourism depends very much on the people who ... tell their friends and family about their experience. When they experience the problems we have in immigration then they go back home and tell people not to come here."
The department introduced biometric system‚ which captures travellers’ fingerprints at ports of entry‚ in April last year‚ but rolled it out this June at 65% of Home Affairs counters at terminals for arrivals and transit passengers.
Compounding the problem was confusion over the requirement for foreign visitors to travel with unabridged birth certificates for their children.
Venter said the regulations had to change to help boost tourism. "Until these regulations are changed we are going to struggle."
The Tourism Business Council of South Africa revealed on Friday the extent of disruption for tourists landing at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport‚ measured during 1-18 October 2016.
Visitors queued at immigration at peak times for anything from 90 minutes to four hours; 800 passengers missed connecting flights due to delays; 24 domestic and nine international flights were delayed. International migration services counters were staffed at only 40% strength on average.
The council told members of parliament’s tourism committee that‚ as a result of the unabridged birth certificate regulation‚ 13‚246 people were denied boarding to SA from June 2015 to July 2016. Taking into account that a tourist to SA spends on average R13‚000 a day‚ the regulation has cost SA R7.51bn in revenue, said the council.
Home Affairs defended the biometric system at another briefing in Johannesburg on Friday‚ and said it would also be introduced at ports next year.
"Biometric capturing enhances our capacity to uniquely identify individuals and confirm the identity of travellers with the highest possible degree of certainty‚ security and efficiency‚" said Home Affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni.
"Although it has increased the processing time per traveller‚ it remains a key component in order to protect our national security." He acknowledged problems in implementing the technology‚ but said this was due to National Treasury austerity measures.
Apleni said the department did not have enough staff to deal with the rise in the number of people arriving for processing at OR Tambo International Airport — the average monthly number of travellers cleared rose from 668‚882 in 2015 to 669‚621 in 2016. He said this put pressure on the 87 immigration counters at the airport.
"We are managing a four-shift system per week‚ reinforcing our day shift to deal with terminals experiencing a high volume of travellers. This translates into a situation where more than 40% of our immigration counters cannot be operational at peak periods‚ given limited staff capacity and the need to balance shift operations over a 24-hour cycle‚" Apleni said.
BDlive
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.