Create 50,000 South African Jobs After the Crisis, Reform Tourist Visa Regulations to Allow Visa on Arrival for Chinese Tourists

There is no need to remind everybody how bleak South Africa’s tourism industry looks at the moment and perhaps there is not much appetite to highlight the fact that it was already in bad shape with not much hope for improvement. But the fact is, on the Chinese outbound tourism front, destination South Africa was already squandering the great Chinese spending power before Coronavirus.

One just has to look at the official South African Tourism numbers, in 2019 we received 93,000 Chinese tourists. A decade earlier South Africa was receiving 120,000 to 150,00 Chinese tourists, the expectation was how soon we would receive 200,000 Chinese and more. Now we can’t even get 100,000 Chinese tourists anymore for whatever reason. 2019’s 93,000 tourists was -3.9% down on 2018’s 97,000. Year-on-year growth rates prior to that include 0% growth for 2017, -17% for 2016, a breather of 38% growth for 2015, a mere 2.2% growth for 2014 and a decline of -23.3% for 2013. Compare with 12 hour flight from China destination Australia, they were receiving over a million Chinese tourists per year before the crisis, but what particularly caught my attention was hearing Australian tourism industry leaders speak about how one million high spending Chinese tourists was not enough, two million was the next target. Incidentally, the Chinese tourists spent R143 billion in Australia last year (AUS$12 billion). That is billion, not million. I don’t think South Africa can even dream of so much tourism money anymore never mind having the confidence to go out and get it.

Clearly something or many things have gone terribly wrong with us. There could be, and should be, a debate within the industry amongst all role-players as to why and how the brand of our beloved destination has been damaged in the land where the most US$ millionaires live, by far. Many involved in the industry, private and government, are trying their best but let’s just diplomatically say the structures which have been put in place make it impossible to succeed, whether they were, or were not, up to the task in any case. Critical eyes need to analyze the whole business chain in China-South Africa tourism, starting with the Chinese outbound tour operators and online tour operators, South African Tourism spending our tax payer money in China, the South African based local landing operators receiving the groups (a can of worms once you dig deeper) and ending with the consumer facing hotels and restaurants. Who is providing real value and creating a good reputation for our country and who is engaged in doggy business and screwing up the market for everyone else. Who is selling the dream while who is underselling us through whatever means making us look cheap while we are not? But now we are in a crisis, and united we stand or divided we fall. Now is the time for cooperation, not bickering.

If there is one stakeholder in particular that should be spared no conciliation until action is taken however it would be the Department of Home Affairs and the relevant senior cabinet leaders, including the President, and their dragging of their feet in making it easier for Chinese tourists to travel to South Africa. Under President Ramaphosa, Chinese tourist visas have now been made multiple entry with longer years of validity, based on the assumption Chinese tourists could then return to South Africa on holiday more than once. Given the market reality we were facing then already, in 2018, it was a useless amendment which considering the 3.9% decline in the last years Chinese arrivals clearly didn’t work. Sorry then Minister of Tourism, I told you so.

I am confident I am not alone when I say the time for debate within the high echelons of government about removing the hurdles to our national success in tourism is now over. The Government was absent in international media crisis communications during the Xenophobic attacks in our country amongst many other disturbances which hurt our image (Ebola, robbery and murder of Chinese tourists, take your pick), it implemented suicidal visa and travel regulations that deeply damaged the industry that thankfully have been largely reversed, but the final and greatest hurdles still need to be removed.

Reform the visa policies to allow for Chinese tourists to gain a visa on arrival to South Africa. Numerous countries have the visa policy that if Chinese citizens have a valid multi-year multiple entry visa to the United States or a Schengen Visa (or other trusted countries) in their passport they can apply and gain a valid tourist visa on arrival in their country, placing security check issues to rest. They still pay the relevant application fee. This shockingly is one of the greatest hurdles we face. The simple reason is that Chinese people are very busy people, take my word for it. They can travel to an endless number of tourism countries already with either free visa or visa on arrival policies so when choosing at the last minute to travel somewhere for leisure purposes (Chinese tourists are not long term planners) they automatically choose countries with easy visa policies. It’s that simple.

Allow for Chinese tourists to gain a visa on arrival to South Africa and let's get our house in order to provide a better quality product over a sustainable future and we can receive up to 500,000 Chinese tourists, we can do it. That's 50,000 jobs. No other tourist source market on earth can give us those kind of arrival numbers and the Chinese kind of dollar spend in a short space of time. Reform now that when the crisis clears we can get back to real business before there is no business left at all. 

(I write this in my personal capacity and it does not reflect the views of the organisation I represent.)