Durban - Durban’s tourism-dependent businesses have seen a drop in overseas visitors because of the country’s new visa regulations for children.
Local travel associations, travel agents, hotels and bed and breakfast establishments applauded Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom for acknowledging that the new regulations had contributed to a significant drop in international visitors.
They described the new travel requirements for children as “mind-boggling” and “absolute madness”, and have called for them to be amended or completely scrapped.
In Durban on Friday, Tsogo Sun’s director of operations, Mike Jackson, said they had felt the effects of the law during the World Baptist Alliance conference in the city recently.
The organisers were expecting between 5 000 and 6 000 tourists.
“But we ended up with about 3 000 people,” he said, attributing the drop in figures to the regulations.
Jackson said they were expecting the numbers for other international conferences still to be held in Durban to also decrease drastically.
“We’ve become a difficult country to travel to. The Chinese and Indians aren’t coming because it’s just too difficult for them, because they usually travel in large groups with children,” he said.
Jackson called for the regulations to be repealed.
Peter Rose, chairperson of Umhlanga Tourism, said they were fortunate because uMhlanga was a year-long holiday destination.
“But we have seen a drop. It has impacted on some places more than others. In a country where the economy is suffering and where tourism forms such a huge contribution, it defies logic to come up with such legislation,” he said.
“The government needs to ask itself whether it wants to grow the economy or not.”
In addition, there had been a decrease in figures for tourists from Holland, Belgium and the UK, who also usually travel in groups.
“If these tourists fall foul of the legislation, they would rather stay in their countries or go on holiday elsewhere,” said Rose.
The regulations, which the Department of Home Affairs says are to protect children from child trafficking, came into effect two months ago.
Bed and Breakfast Association of SA managing director Barbara Hamm said the law would fail to yield the desired results. Child traffickers would find loopholes.
Charles Preece, operations manager at the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa, described the regulations as absolute madness.
“I support what the tourism minster said. This law has brought the country’s tourism to a state of panic,” he said.
Speaking during a radio interview, Hanekom said figures for the first quarter of the year had shown a “worrying drop” in the number of visitors coming into the country.
Markets like China had shown a drop of almost 40 percent, he said.
After Hanekom conceded the new requirements were hurting the industry, Minister of Home Affairs Melusi Gigaba defended the regulations and accused Hanekom of undermining the cabinet.
Gigaba said protecting children was non-negotiable, and that the regulations would not be scrapped.
He said authorities would look into ways to simplify the administrative problems associated with unabridged birth certificates.
The new regulations require minors travelling to and from South Africa to have unabridged birth certificates, as well as the consent of both their parents.
Hamm said her association was concerned about decreasing tourism figures.
“I know there might be many factors, like the financial crisis or the Ebola outbreak, but we’ve seen the most significant drop after this act,” she said.
The most noticeable decline in tourism was in the Chinese market.
The government should have been level-headed and considered all affected stakeholders before implementing such “drastic” regulations.
The DA’s shadow minister of tourism, James Vos, said the government would have to launch a public relations campaign costing “hundreds of millions” of rand to repair the damage caused by the new regulations.
Vos, who plans to bring an urgent motion before Parliament next week in a bid to find solutions, said it was now time for Gigaba to “admit defeat, cut his losses and suspend the regulations”. – Additional reporting by Barbara Cole
Independent on Saturday