South Africa targets Indian and Chinese tourists with new visa scheme

SOUTH AFRICA'S tourism stakeholders will be targeting the Indian and Chinese markets to attract more travellers to the country.

Minister of Tourism, Patricia de Lille said they have been working on improving their visa regulations for visitors coming to South Africa.

She said there has been breakthrough after two years of fighting with Home Affairs. The Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTOS) for India and China was announced in February.

"Travellers from India and China are ready to come. The scheme was launched on February 12 and on February 20 we welcomed the first 30 Chinese tourists using that new visa system.

"We need to use that system to grow the market between India, China and South Africa. India and China travel in big groups. The market needs to position itself to cater for that kind of market from India and China. We will be doing a lot of direct marketing to target those two markets for the rest of the year to take advantage of the new visa regime," said De Lille.

The Department of Home Affairs digital platform for the TTOS, was introduced to drive increased tourism from the major source markets of India and China by enabling vetted and approved tour operators to submit group applications for large tour groups from these two countries.

This was meant to address a long-standing obstacle to tourism growth, whereby long queues, red tape and the inability to process group applications timeously led to inefficiency in the issuing of visas for tourists from these countries.

Before TTOS was created, there were only two South African missions in China, and only two missions in India, to serve the 2.8 billion people living in those two countries who wanted to visit as tourists to South Africa.

But under the new TTOS digital-first system, tourists from India and China who use approved tour operators will no longer have to visit a mission, will no longer fill in a single form, will not need to stand in a single queue, and will receive their visas digitally within three days.

Sibusiso Ndebele, KwaZulu-Natal Tourism and Film Authority chairperson and former High Commissioner to India, said it was very gratifying to know what one has strived for is finally successful.

"As the high commissioner the issue of visas was heartbreaking. There were groups and groups of people in India wanting to come, in China wanting to come, but they would get frustrated about the visas. They would end up going to other African countries or elsewhere.

"It was frustrating being in New Delhi having hundreds and hundreds of people applying and waiting for their response, if they will get their visa or not. Finally our prayer has been listened to. Now people have easy access from India and China to South Africa," said Ndebele.

He said visitors from India and China travel in big groups and throughout the year.

"Indians travelling to South Africa come to KwaZulu-Natal, the province that produced Gandhi. They are connected by relatives, religion, culture and to be hindered in the past by a visa has been frustrating, and now it's all systems go," said Ndebele.

SUNDAY TRIBUNE