NO AMOUNT OF MARKETING SOUTH AFRICA WILL HELP MUCH IF VISA CONTINUE TO BE DENIED
(Posted 03rd May 2019)
While South Africa’s tourism minister Derek Hanekom, with much fanfare, launched ‘JURNI‘, a private public sector partnership to supposedly transform and by their own words revolutionize the country’s tourism and travel industry, have Ugandan sources complained bitterly about being denied Visa after having paid for tickets, stands at INDABA and hotel accommodation, besides the required Visa processing fees.
This, sadly, is not a single or unique case as South Africa, a country supported during the independence struggle by the entire African continent, now seems to shut the doors into the faces of fellow Africans who wish to travel to the country – in the case of Ugandans to attend INDABA where they were due to promote travel to Uganda, a country much more liberal when it comes to tourist Visa.
Only weeks ago did one of Africa’s most respected tourism publishers, Mr. Kojo Bentum-Williams of VoyagesAfriq, have to leave Cape Town after being denied an extension for his Visa by another week.
The case: Kojo – incidentally well known to Mr. Hanekom after interviewing him several times in the past – attended World Travel Market Africa and then wanted to stay on to cover the Aviation Development Summit, in short #AviaDevAfrica2019, before returning home to Ghana.
That was not to be though. Immigration officials denied him an extended stay and an appeal filed – for all practical purposes wasting his available reporting time for #WTMA2019 – in person saw officials dig in and send him packing and forcing him to buy another ticket to come back to Cape Town just a few days later.
If they were worried Kojo would overstay or ‘melt away’ they were utterly wrong of course. Kojo came, at his own expense, back to Cape Town and then returned home to Ghana, and lo and behold, he is now in Lucerne at the World Tourism Forum to give that event coverage, before at the end of it again returning home to Accra, where his family lives and where his publication is based.
As a UNWTO Senior Communications Expert for Africa Kojo got, proverbially speaking, bitch slapped by South African immigration officials and no amount of apologies, from minister to High Commissioner, can conceal the fact that he was badly treated.
From complaints received from Kampala I know of at least 12 cases now where tour operators and hotel staff were denied Visa, under a system which stinks to heaven.
Seychelles has an open door policy, requiring now Visa at all, and Rwanda, Ghana and Ethiopia, among others, now officially grant Visa on arrival to citizens of African Union Member States but South Africa, already in the bad press over their renewed attack series on foreigners, clearly think they are holier than thou?
So the new Jurni project, noble as it sounds, will not reach its full potential unless South Africa opens her doors and lets tourists from the rest of Africa in and not give European and North American nationalities preference with cost free Visa on arrival while keeping those brothers and sisters, whose governments spend hundreds of millions of Dollars during the independence struggle to help South Africa only to be trampled into the dust as if they no longer matter these days.
I expect a fair amount of yapping from South African officials, trying to defend their immigration and Visa policies in mitigation, but my friends, spare your breath, it will not cut it.
Your mis-steps in the past over children birth certificates, among other follies like for some time forcing Kenyans traveling through South Africa to their final destination requiring Transit Visa, or almost habitually denying Rwandans access to Visa services, have kept tens of thousands of bone fide visitors out of South Africa, at a time when you need every single dollar you can reap from the industry but almos willfully threw that money out of your windows and oftentimes, thank you very much, into the hands of fellow African countries competing for the same tourists you do in South Africa.
My advise, reform on the double before the backlash gets that bad that you have to crawl to the table in shame to fix what is now being wantonly destroyed. Otherwise, initiatives like Jurni, will fail to reach its full potential!
More details about Jurni, incidentally launched at INDABA by tourism minister Hanekom – in the absence of many Ugandan and arguably other African attendees over their Visa – can be found through the link below:
https://www.atta.travel/news/2019/05/new-tech-initiative-to-revolutionise-south-africa-s-travel-and-tourism-sector/?mc_cid=c5352c715d&mc_eid=eeae680807
