By Simon Nare
President Cyril Ramaphosa has committed the government to growing the tourism industry, which he identified as one of the most rapidly growing sectors and contributing to the economy with an increasing number of visitors.
In his State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa said the government would grow the sector by marketing it and making it a more attractive tourist destination with visa reforms and increasing number of flights to key destinations.
The president said the services sector was now the largest part of the economy, ranging from financial services and retail, to hospitality, tourism and the burgeoning creative industry.
“The tourism sector is growing rapidly, with close to nine million tourists having visited our country last year. One of our attractive sites in our country which we want to grow is Robben Island.
“I visited Robben Island on the 8th of January (2025) and I got to hear that in a year now they are going to be receiving 300,000 visitors and they want to grow to half million visitors in a year.
“And most of these visitors are South Africans. So, we will grow tourism through our visa reforms, through our increasing our number of flights key destinations and through the marketing of our country as the best country to visit in the world,” he said.
Ramaphosa did not specify whether the Tourism Department would have an increase in its budget. It is allocated one of the lowest budgets.
In the 2024/25 budget, the department was allocated R2.3 billion, with a large portion going to the SA Tourism, which is responsible for marketing South Africa as a tourist destination.
The president, however, stressed that as part of the government’s reform agenda, the state would continue to enhance the visa system to make it easier for skilled people to invest in the country and to grow tourism.
He said the government would launch an Electronic Travel Authorisation system to enable a secure, fully digital visa application process this year.
“This system will use artificial intelligence and automation to reduce the scope for corruption and enable rapid turnaround times for tourist visas. We have cleared over 90% of the backlog of more than 300,000 visa applications,” he said
He added that these changes sent a strong message that South Africa was open for business and tourism.
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