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Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom. Picture: DoC
South Africa’s tourism industry is on the mend after its poor
performance in 2015, Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom told Parliament today.
More than one million tourists arrived in South Africa in January,
a 15% increase from the same month last year. In February, 18% more
international visitors arrived than the previous year.
This showed that the industry was resilient and “recovering
rapidly” after a 6.8% decline in international tourists last year compared with
2014, he said.
Quoting estimates from the World Travel and Tourism Council,
Hanekom said that tourism was set to earn R120 billion in export earnings and to
contribute more than R380 billion to the economy this year.
Presenting his R2-billion budget vote speech, Hanekom admitted that
the new visa regulations had aggravated the negative impact of global and
economic pressures on the industry last year.
But he said that progress had been made in implementing Cabinet’s
decisions on changes to the immigration relations. For instance, after the
decision to allow travel agencies to apply for visas on behalf of travellers,
tourism from China was “rebounding very strongly” – numbers nearly doubled in
January this year compared with the same month last year.
Tourism from India was still being held back due to the long delays
in obtaining visas, but his department was working with the home affairs
department to find a solution.
Responding to Hanekom’s speech, Democratic Alliance member of
Parliament James Vos said that it was a case of “too much too late”.
South Africa had failed to subject the new regulations to impact
assessments prior to implementation. Had it done so, “we could have avoided
these disastrous consequences”, said Vos.
Amid a slump in tourism and intense lobbying and pressure, the
government backtracked on some of its controversial new visa regulations in
October, and concessions were introduced.
