DA to approach Tourism Complaints Officer on visa regulations
26 May 2015
I will today submit an official complaint to the Tourism Complaints Officer, Mirriam Setwaba, to investigate and address the Department of Home Affairs’ draconian visa regulations which are set to come into force on 1 June 2015.
This follows today’s meeting of the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee, in which I put forward the DA’s submissions on the regulations, and the negative impact they will have on the tourism industry.
The new visa regulations will require parents entering South Africa to provide an unabridged birth certificate of all travelling children. In addition, South Africans and foreigners have to provide details of the child's father and mother. This applies even when both parents are travelling with their children.
A child denied boarding by an airline ultimately means a family cannot travel and, by industry estimates, until traveller awareness is 100%, tourist arrivals to South Africa could be negatively impacted by up to 20%. Based on 2013 numbers, 536 000 foreign visitors could be denied travel.