Following news of the phased implementation plan to roll out electronic visas to 15 countries, many Tourism Update readers queried the viability of some of these source markets, noting than many of South Africa’s main markets were not mentioned.

However, Mark Hathaway countered this by commenting:

“It is true that most of these countries send few tourists to SA. However, most of the major source markets for SA – Europe, North America etc – have been able to get visas on arrival anyway. Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that will continue to be the case. I assume these eVisas will be for countries that previously had to apply in advance for visas, and could not get them on arrival.

That used to involve a long procedure of sending an application off to the closest SA embassy (which may not have even been in their country) and waiting for a reply. So for these nationals, the ability to apply online, and hopefully get a quicker reply, will definitely be an improvement.”