South African new visa regulations take toll on tourism

South Africa's much-criticised new visa regulations have taken a toll on tourism, resulting in a general slow-down in growth of tourists, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday.

The bureau painted a bleak picture for the tourism industry with year-on-year growth from 2013 to 2014 at just 0.1 percent, compared with 3.6 percent between 2012 and 2013 and 10.2 percent between 2011 and 2012.

Releasing a report in Pretoria, Statistician General Pali Lehohla said South Africa suffered from a massive drop of tourists from China by 45.1 percent in particular during the 2013 to 2014 period.

In 2013, there were a recorded 41, 650 Chinese tourists to South Africa, in 2014 there were 30, 767 and in 2015 there were only 19, 104 tourists

"China had the highest decrease of 45.1 percent while tourists from the Netherlands increased by 8.7 percent," Lehohla said.

During the 2013-2014 period, nearly three quarters of tourists were from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, about a quarter came from overseas and two percent were residents from other African countries, Lehohla said.

According to the report, the leading countries for oversees tourists in 2014 were Britain with 401,914, the United States with 309,255, Germany with 274,571, France with 131,502, the Netherlands with 131,287, Australia with 111,213, India 85,639, Canada with 60,544 and Italy with 58,605.

A comparison of the 2014 volumes with the 2013 volumes indicates that the number of tourists decreased in all oversees countries, except for the Netherlands.

"I think it's something that the policy departments have to look at and say what this status tells us. In leading memory of tracking tourism numbers, we haven't seen such a sharp decline," Lehohla said.

He said that while Stats SA tracks the numbers, they're unable to provide reasons for the changes.

The new visa regulations have been blamed for the slow-down in tourism growth.

Under the revised regulations implemented in mid-2014, tourists to South Africa have to apply in person for visas so that "biometric data can be reliably collected".

On June 1 this year, another new rule took effect, requiring children crossing the borders to be with their unabridged birth certificates, in addition to their passports.

The government argues that the new rules are necessary for national security and for fighting child trafficking.