The South African government has said that it will relax issuance of visa to Nigeria, China and India nationals.
The country also said that it received approximately 54,000 arrivals from Nigeria in 2018.
The Director-General of the Department of Tourism, South Africa, Victor Tharage, disclosed the development during a press conference at the ongoing 2019 Africa’s Travel Indaba in Durban, South Africa.
Tharage further said that the relaxation of visa issuance to Nigeria, China, and India was in relation to visa requirements and the number of days of processing of 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 and frequent travellers.
READ ALSO: Another Nigerian Allegedly Killed By South African Police
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.
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 years, South Africa made efforts to see certain categories of people visiting the country without any difficulty.
He further said that 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.
“Because it is not only Nigeria, I am quite sure that there are few Ghanaians here; I am quite sure that there are Kenyans here as well and that there are many represented here than many other media people from countries that require visas to South Africa,” Hanekom added.
