The President pledged that his government is ready to introduce of a world-class E-Visa regime. “This, combined with enhanced destination marketing and measures to strengthen tourism safety, will create the conditions for the growth we envisage, and the jobs and opportunities that will follow,” said Ramaphosa.
He said Government was pleased with the progress made in restoring policy certainty on the new visa regime. “We are focusing our attention, our policies and our programmes on the key parts of the economy that are labour intensive. These include agriculture, tourism and the ocean economy.”
Quoted by TourismUpdate, the President also said the country’s “concerted efforts to market South Africa as a prime destination for tourists has yielded positive results, with significant annual growth in the number of foreign visitors. In the past year we had 10 million tourists who came to our country. We intend to raise this to 21 million by 2030, targeting, among others, the largest and fastest growing markets of India and China, as well as strong markets on our continent. We will deepen the partnership between government and business to realise this vision.”