Digital visa scheme brings more than 11,000 Chinese and Indian tourists to SA in three months
Operation Vulindlela, which monitors progress in key structural reforms, found one job is created for every 13 tourists visiting the country. Based on this ratio, TTOS has already helped create an estimated 857 new tourism jobs since February.
Previously, tourists from China and India were required to travel long distances to apply for visas, often receiving outcomes too late to travel. Under TTOS, visa outcomes are delivered digitally within hours through a secure online platform.
Schreiber highlighted that last year's total number of tourists from China to South Africa stood at just more than 30,000, making the 11,000 brought in through TTOS in only three months 'almost a third of all tourists from China who visited South Africa last year'.
' The success of TTOS demonstrates the enormous growth potential we can unlock by rolling out a digital-only visa platform — not only for group travel from these 65 partners but for every tourist in the world.
The minister confirmed plans to expand the scheme with a second intake of tour operators and rollout of a broader Electronic Travel Authorisation system later this year.
' This system will digitalise and automate tourism and short-stay visas, enabling every tourist on earth who wants to visit South Africa to instantly and securely obtain a digital visa,' said Schreiber.
'Not only will this eliminate fraud and inefficiency, but, as TTOS demonstrates beyond doubt, it will amount to the single biggest reform to boost job creation in the tourism sector in decades.'
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