{"id":222050,"date":"2022-04-13T12:25:15","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T10:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/?p=114849"},"modified":"2022-04-13T12:25:15","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T10:25:15","slug":"evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"eVisas are the key to unlocking SA\u2019s inbound tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1 \">\n<aside id=\"republication_tracker_tool-2\" class=\"republication_tracker_tool clearfix\">\n<h5 class=\"adtitle\">Republish for Free<\/h5>\n<div class=\"license\">\n<p><button name=\"Republish This Story\" id=\"cc-btn\" class=\"republication-tracker-tool-button\">Republish This Story<\/button><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"license\" rel=\"noreferrer license noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" class=\"lazyload\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism.png\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"message\">\n<p>Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/?attachment_id=114850\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-114850 size-thumbnail lazyload\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-114850 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism.jpg\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"200\">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\u2019s tourism operators\u2019 chances of success are hobbled by the country\u2019s antiquated paper-based visa system, which effectively prevents hundreds of thousands of international tourists from visiting the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 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,\u201d explains Marc Wachsberger, managing director of The Capital Hotels and Apartments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis 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\u2019s location \u2013 adding an often insurmountable obstacle to their travel plans,\u201d he explains. \u201cMostly, they\u2019ll just look for somewhere else to go, that either doesn\u2019t have visa requirements for their home country, or that has a quick and effective online visa application system, followed by a virtual visa delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s port entry requirements, are able to enter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA 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,\u201d Wachsberger explains. \u201cThe 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 \u2013 and South Africa \u2013 have lost the revenue that they would have brought with them, and another country will benefit from that instead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe last two years have shown us just how quickly shifts to virtual ways of working can happen if there\u2019s 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,\u201d he says. \u201cSouth Africa is lagging its counterparts in Africa when it comes to digital travel documents, and we\u2019re 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\u2019s tourism industry, and indeed its economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mypr.co.za\/contact\/featured\/\">CLICK HERE to submit your press release to MyPR.co.za<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <span class=\"post-views-icon dashicons dashicons-chart-bar\"><\/span> <span class=\"post-views-label\">Post Views:<\/span> <span class=\"post-views-count\">18<\/span> <\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-pagination pagination\">Pages: <span class=\"post-page-numbers current\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Page <\/span>1<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Page <\/span>2<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\">Source: MyPR.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republish for Free Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":222051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584,9021],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-222050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"category-mypr","9":"tag-mypr","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/evisas-are-the-key-to-unlocking-sas-inbound-tourism.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}