If South Africa plans to meet its tourism growth targets, it must address visa issues that have plagued the Indian and Chinese markets.
David Frost, CEO of SATSA said: “India and China have the greatest potential for growth. We’re not going to grow North America and Europe at double the numbers. In India and China, we can actually get some good growth. We don’t want mass tourism, but we should be at least doubling our numbers.”
However, even before the pandemic, the numbers of tourists from these markets were receding. This is something Frost attributes to the visa regime, which is complicated and beset by delays.
Conversely, Australia has seen tremendous growth, purely because the government has committed to making tourism a priority, making visas easier to get and working with the industry to grow the sector.
India
India is one of the world’s fastest-growing outbound tourism markets. Data from McKinsey&Co suggests that the market could go from 13 million outbound trips…
