Indian tourist arrivals are on the up but still have some way to go to recover lost ground, writes Michelle Colman.

Despite numerous obstacles, such as the lack of direct flights and the much-publicised visa frustrations, the number of Indian travellers to South Africa is recovering, with the period January- March this year showing a 16.9% increase over 2015.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India recently indicated that South Africa was among the list of favoured destinations for the upcoming summer, along with Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, the Maldives and China.

Local and Indian wholesalers agree that demand for South Africa is bouncing back but that it could do even better if the visa issuing process was accelerated.

Renuka Natu, Head of Sales and Marketing in Mumbai for Indian tour specialist SST, a division of Tourvest, says visas for South Africa are still taking 20 working days, despite SA Consulate claims of a five-day processing period. “Clients trust the [consulate] website more than the information given to them by the agent, resulting in late submission to the agent and last-minute cancellations owing to delays with the visa. I am still receiving at least one visa delay case per fortnight, and mostly for group passengers.”

She points out that South Africa’s performance in this instance is not as smooth as its direct competitor, Australia.

Her South African counterpart, Suzanne Benadie, Director of Sales and Marketing at SST in Johannesburg recounts: “We recently had a group arriving in May where eight guests had to cancel last minute as their visas had not come through. A lot of confirmed bookings are releasing and cancelling due to visa challenges, only to be reinstated a few days later when visas come through. Sometimes hotels no longer have availability.”

Johan Groenewald, MD of SA-based Royal African Discoveries, experienced a flood of calls from Indian agents in April concerning changes in supporting documentation required by VFS visa centres that supply visa processing services for the South African Consulate-General. Centres were requesting original letters from hotels and stamped and signed itineraries, whereas previously they accepted standard tour operator letters.

“VFS has eased up on the unnecessary requirements,” he told Tourism Update in early June. “We’re not involved in the actual applications in India but from the feedback we’ve received from our trade partners in India that do the applications on behalf of their clients, the situation has improved.”

Groenewald said while his company was experiencing a good season, the problems experienced at the beginning of the season had affected the willingness of the Indian trade to promote South Africa, for fear of similar issues reoccurring. “The numbers could have been so much better if things were running smoothly from the beginning.”

South Africa’s attempts to ease the visa application procedure for prospective Indian visitors has included outsourcing to VFS Global, which, according to its website, has set up nine South African Visa Application Centres in New Delhi, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Goa and Bangalore. VFS Global handles visitor and transit visa applications and, from this month, will also accept long-term/permit applications.

These centres fall either under the purview of the South African High Commission in New Delhi, or the South African Consulate-General in Mumbai and list processing times of five to seven days.  However, Tourism Update understands that it is at the High Commission and Consulate-General where much of the delay has occurred, due to capacity constraints, which have been experienced for years. A stakeholder told Tourism Update that South Africa had lost the season for the past three years because of this limitation. Capacity has now been addressed, but only after the past high season. “We need two years of visas issued in the stipulated time in order to recover to 2013-plus numbers,” the source said.

The unabridged certificate (UBC) issue of the past two years has further muddied the water, and the lack of clarity concerning its enforcement continues to confuse.  It is understood that while the Department of Home Affairs’ website indicates that a UBC is not required if the names of parents appear in a child’s passport, the SA Consulate-General in Mumbai was, until recently, still requesting it.

Fear that recording of biometrics at visa application stage would add a further complication, has been allayed with South Africa’s decision to record them on arrival.

On the plus side, South Africa’s current value for money has been an encouraging inducement to Indian travellers. Comments Hanneli Slabber, SA Tourism’s Country Manager in Mumbai: “With the volatility of the South African rand versus the Indian rupee, we have seen that our Indian travellers, instead of banking the saving, rather stay a little bit longer and spend more.” 

Judy Lain, Chief Marketing Officer for Wesgro, believes the Indian market remains largely untapped.  India is the Western Cape’s third-largest Asian/Australasian source market, but with the UNWTO predicting 50 million international Indian tourists by 2050 with a spend expectation of US$26 billion, the potential remains huge in terms of volume and value. The province saw a 24.6% drop in Q1 2015 vs Q1 2014 and a 6.7% increase from Q2 2014 vs Q2 2015.