Aidoghie Paulinus, Durban
The South African government, yesterday, said it would ensure visa relaxation for Nigeria, China and India nationals.
This comes as the country said it received approximately 54,000 arrivals from Nigeria in 2018.
The Director-General of the Department of Tourism, South Africa, Victor Tharage, disclosed the visa relaxation development during a press conference at the ongoing 2019 Africa’s Travel Indaba in Durban, South Africa.
Tharage further said the relaxation of visa issues for Nigeria, China and India, was in relation to visa requirements and number of days of processing of the visa.
“In terms of visas, our biggest focus at the moment is to get better ease of access to Nigeria, India, and China. These are the three markets that are the biggest priorities,” Tharage said.
The Minister of Tourism of South Africa, Derek Hanekom, who corroborated Tharage’s disclosure, said the affected categories were business travellers and frequent travellers.
Hanekom added that South Africa was also looking at e-visa for the three countries to ensure smooth visa administration to intending travellers to South Africa.
Hanekom however did not state when the e-visa system will take place, even as he noted that South Africa witnessed about 54,000 arrivals from Nigeria in 2018.
He also said South Africa was clearly aware that Nigeria, China and India were part of South Africa’s huge potential growth markets, in particular, as part of the top 10.
“We have got top 10 biggest sourced markets for tourist arrivals. India and China fit to that. We are getting approximately 100,000 tourist arrivals from those two countries.
“Nigeria is a country that has huge growth potential. But in all of those three countries that are visa requiring countries, it is difficult and it takes a long time to get a visa,” Hanekom said.
Hanekom recalled that in the past year, South Africa made efforts to see certain categories of people visiting the country without any difficulty.
He further said apart from visa relaxation for Nigeria, China and India, South Africa is also planning to reform its whole visa system, which will be beneficial and also affect every country.