Dear Ramaphosa, please scrap Gigaba`s visa regulation now!

Source: Antoinette Slabbert – Moneyweb, 02/10/2015

The tourism industry is fed-up with insults from Home Affairs Minister
Malusi Gigaba and his Deputy Fatima Chohan and has called on Deputy
President Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately scrap the "irrational" and
"draconian" new visa regulations.


Several industry bodies under the umbrella of the Tourism Business
Council of South Africa (TBCSA) held a media briefing in Fourways
outside Johannesburg on Thursday, in response to utterances by Gigaba
and Chohan, criticising the industry`s opposition to the new
regulations.


CEO of the Southern African Tourism Services Association (Satsa) David
Frost said at the briefing that growth in tourism numbers stopped
abruptly in June 2014, especially from BRIC countries, when in-person
visa application requirements came into effect.


He said from September to December last year the number of visitors
from Brazil declined by 37%, from China by 46.9% and from India by
14.4%. This trend continued in 2015.


StatsSA reported a 13% year-on-year decline in overseas arrivals in
June, he said. The Reserve Bank states preliminary estimations have
suggested that the level of gross travel receipts declined by 9% in
the second quarter of 2015.


Gigaba reportedly said on Sunday that opposition to the visa
regulations were based on "lies and cooked-up figures and surveys with
no credibility whatsoever". He also repeated this on Twitter and said
the tourism sector was not marketing the country correctly.


We (@HomeAffairsSA) never said the numbers would not drop. We expected
# to drop as tourist comply &familiarize themselves with regulations
— Malusi Gigaba (@mgigaba) September 27, 2015

I think if we promoted tourism & encourage tourist to comply instead
of the opposite we would be in a much better position.


— Malusi Gigaba (@mgigaba) September 27, 2015

Our tourism industry has not been selling the country as well as it
should. We should not be selling the country on easy access for children
— Malusi Gigaba (@mgigaba) September 27, 2015

Chohan allegedly referred to the "whinging and whining" of the
industry and said she did not expect wholesale changes to the
regulations.


Frost said she made this statement despite the fact that an
inter-ministerial committee, chaired by Ramaphosa and set up by
President Jacob Zuma to deal with the unintended consequences of the
regulations, has not yet announced its findings.
Ramaphosa`s spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said on Thursday that the
findings will only be made public after Zuma has reported back to
cabinet.


Frost said the tourism industry has had no input into the workings of
the committee, but has supplied relevant data to the Department of
Tourism in support of the industry`s position.


He said the industry has tried to engage the Department of Home
Affairs on the matter, but without any success. Two highly credible
reports by consultancy group Grant Thornton – the first containing a
forecast about the possible impact and the second about the real
impact as it unfolds – were rejected outright by the department, he
said.


Frost said South Africa is the only country in the world that demands
an unabridged birth certificate from children and that there are more
effective ways to combat child trafficking.


The Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) has reported a 44%
drop in the number of children travelling to and from the country in
June, July and August this year, compared with the corresponding
period last year.


The in-person application requirement should be replaced by biometrics
on arrival, as is done in Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal and Abu Dhabi,
Frost said.


According to Frost, the requirements are impractical and Home Affairs
cannot even implement them. The process requires prospective tourists
from countries such as Columbia and Estonia, where there are no South
African consulates, to travel to other countries to apply for
visas.


Source markets from India, China and Russia are also severely
affected, he said. Prospective travellers have to travel to visa
centres. In China, for example, there are only such centres in Beijing
and Shanghai.


Lorna Lloyd of the Jewellery Council Of South Africa, said jewellers
who deal specifically with tourists from China have been severely
impacted. She said one diamond company has seen a significant drop in
visits from approximately 100 Chinese groups per month to between 20
and 25. Another, which has been in business for 35 years and mainly
deals with Chinese visitors may have to close its doors, which will
also impact at least 15 suppliers.


Frost said travel agents in China have taken South Africa as a
destination out of their brochures, which is the equivalent of taking
a product off the shelf. He said it took 15 years to build this market
and even if the regulations are scrapped immediately, it won`t be easy
to reverse.


The current crisis in the tourism industry does not require a
financial bailout from government, Frost said. It won`t cost a cent to
scrap the regulations. By a stroke of a pen, government can allow the
industry to capitalise on the weak rand and attract a large number of
foreign tourists back to South Africa.


The impact of new visa regulations in numbers:
June 2015 overseas arrivals per source market vs June 2014 (-13% to
113 689 from 130 410):
Country % change June 2015 June 2014
US -9% 26 503 29 269
UK -8% 17 897 19 371
Australia -11% 7 682 8 654
Germany -12% 6 983 7 927
India -25% 6 577 8 785
France 1% 5 122 5 064
Netherlands -3.50% 4 256 4 411
China -28% 4 167 5 823
Source: StatsSA

Competitors June 2015 per source market vs June 2014:
Australia (+7%) Thailand (+54%) Mauritius (+8%)
Country % change Country % change Country % change
US 19.60% UK 9% UK 12%
UK 4.70% US 30% Germany 3.50%
Germany 12% Germany 6.50% India +17,5%
India 5% India 23% China 60%
China 21% China 187%
Mauritius (+8%)
UK 12%
Germany 3.50%
India 17.50%
China 60%
Source: Tourism Australia Source: Ministry of Tourism and Sport
Thailand Source: Government of Mauritius