In line with global post-pandemic policies, President Cyril Ramaphosa has lifted the National State of Disaster, with the last of the regulations falling away in early May. This would have been outstanding news for the local tourism industry, but for the fact that South Africa’s tourism operators’ chances of success are hobbled by the country’s antiquated paper-based visa system, which effectively prevents hundreds of thousands of international tourists from visiting the country.
“The Department of Home Affairs has been talking about an eVisa system for years, and although it has been rolled out in 14 countries, potential tourists in the rest of the world still have to visit a South African consulate, embassy or trade representative to fill out and submit forms and photographs,” explains Marc Wachsberger, managing director of The Capital Hotels and Apartments.
“This often means that they would have to incur travel time and costs just to apply for a visa, and then again to collect it, if they live somewhere other than the South African representative office’s location – adding an often insurmountable obstacle to their travel plans,” he explains. “Mostly, they’ll just look for somewhere else to go, that either doesn’t have visa requirements for their home country, or that has a quick and effective online visa application system, followed by a virtual visa delivery.”
With South African travellers themselves hobbled by onerous visa requirements for many countries, based on the historic frequency of travel document fraud, a digital visa system would also contribute to eliminating fraudulent travel documents, making sure that only people who have actually complied with the country’s port entry requirements, are able to enter.
“A digital visa system also makes it easier for South Africa to diversify the types of visas it offers in response to the changing world of work,” Wachsberger explains. “The Capital Hotels and Apartments has a constant stream of international executives wanting to work remotely from our Cape Town or Johannesburg apartment hotels, but there is currently no South African visa solution that allows for this. That means that we – and South Africa – have lost the revenue that they would have brought with them, and another country will benefit from that instead.”
Wachsberger welcomes the current piloting of e-gates at Cape Town International Airport that are aimed at improving passenger processing times, and their first experience of South Africa, but urges the Department of Home Affairs to pick up the pace of digitalisation across all elements of its interactions with citizens, and with visitors to the country.
“The last two years have shown us just how quickly shifts to virtual ways of working can happen if there’s a strong will for it to happen, so there really is no excuse for the slow progress in adopting digital solutions for visas and other travel documents,” he says. “South Africa is lagging its counterparts in Africa when it comes to digital travel documents, and we’re going to continue to lose valuable tourism revenue to other nations unless the Department of Home Affairs accelerates the roll-out of its pilot projects. Failing to do so compromises the future of the country’s tourism industry, and indeed its economy.”
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