Indian tourists to S Africa up 23%

South African Tourism department claims to have recorded a 23 per cent growth in the arrival of Indian tourists last year as compared to 2005.

The SA tourism will pay special focus on developing relations with Gujarat-based travel agencies during the present year as the department believes that there is tremendous business potential in Gujarat in terms of tourism.

However, during the first interaction held in Ahmedabad between Lance Littlefield, the country head for SA Tourism in India, and over 100 representatives from the Gujarat's travel industry, many of the travel agencies demanded swift action towards worsening SA visa problem.

Littlefield told Business Standard, "We have witnessed a growing number of Indian tourists in SA. The latest research conducted by SA Tourism October 2006 showed an increase of 31.9 per cent growth as compared to October 2005. The growth from January to October 2006 was 18.9 per cent compared to the same period last year. The provisional year-end results show a 23 per cent growth in the number of Indian tourists."

"We believe that our promotional activities will result in sustaining the growth. For the last few years we have carried out roadshows in cities like Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai. This year we have decided to pay special focus on Gujarat, especially Ahmedabad as the state has a tremendous potential for business in tourism. The corporate people as well as other tourists are turning towards travelling abroad for vacations. This is the first interaction between Ahmedabad based travel agencies and us. We will also organise a meeting between SA based travel agencies and Ahmedabad based travel agents in August so that they can get information about each other's products," added Littlefield

On the promotional activities Littlefield said, "We have specially designed these screen advertisements highlighting the vibrancy and the modernity of the country. We will carry on with the ad campaigns for couple of years and then we will highlight on culture and history of the country."

However, many of the travel agents who attended the interaction had complaints about the delay and increasing rejection rate of visa applications from the SA consulate.

"For the last few months we have witnessed that getting SA tourist visa has become very difficult and the rejection rate has also increased a lot. The SA Tourism must take the matter to the consulate and ask for swift action towards this matter," complained a travel agent during the meet.

When asked about the visa issue Littlefield told Business Standard that the department has already taken the matter with the SA consulate.

"A few months back the SA immigration authority made the rules a little stringent for the security reasons. Now the authorities are asking for more documents and some visa applications were also rejected. However, the situation is turning back to normal now. But still we have taken this problem seriously and have already taken this matter to the consulate."