The ability to facilitate convenient and efficient visa processing for international visitors is critical to growing South Africa’s tourism economy and industry associations are urgently calling for structured engagement between the tourism industry and the Department of Home Affairs.
“Such a dialogue would enable us to convey the on-the-ground frustrations faced by our international visitors and explore the ongoing and planned improvements to the eVisa technology that the Minister (of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi) mentioned,” said David Frost, CEO of the inbound industry association, SATSA.
He was responding to a statement issued by Motsoaledi on Sunday (March 17) refuting allegations that his department is “chasing away tourists from South Africa” following an internal circular that was issued by the department on December 21 last year.
The directive demanded that visitors who have not received visa renewals by February 23 to immediately depart South Africa.
This…