South Africa aims to boost tourism by easing visa regulations

South Africa has announced plans to change its application system for travel visas into the country.

The nation aims to attract more visitors and boost its tourism industry by making visas more accessible.

Derek Hamekom, the Tourism Minister in South Africa, remarked the continent as having made “little progress in visa issuance” at the Travel Indaba gala held in Durban last week.

“Make it easy for people to come to your country; we seem to make it difficult for people to come to Africa.”

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“We need to take stock of which countries need visas and which ones don’t” he noted. He added, “discussions and commitments were impressive but implementation is a challenge”.

The Minister cited airports are being an issue, with tourists declined entry to the country upon arrival due to insufficient travel documents.

One of Hamekom’s proposals was implementing a system of applying for visas online with them being issued on arrival.

Those travelling from Nigeria to South Africa have struggled to receive visas with only three facilitation centres in Africa’s most populated country, leading to a decline in tourism from the nation.