The Cape Town and Western Cape tourism authorities are outraged by the arbitrary changes which have been made in the newly promulgated Immigration Regulations 2014, especially those pertaining to child tourists, and the effect that this is having already on tourism to our city and province.  The implementation of the Regulations has been delayed from 1 July to 1 October, as a result of the uproar it has generated.

The new Immigration regulations require parents to travel with the unabridged birth certificate of each child, the only country in the world to require this documentation for travel to another country.  The process of acquiring such  a document is a lengthy one, one mother writing on Facebook that she had just collected hers from the Malmesbury offices of the Department of Home Affairs after a 13 month waiting period.  This branch is the most efficient at such applications, she had been advised.  The regulations also require the second parent to agree to the foreign travel by the child if that parent is not part of the travel party.

In addition, the new regulations require that visas be applied for outside the country, which would make extending a tourist’s stay prohibitively expensive.  Biometric fingerprinting is now required.  In India and China there are only two such centres in each country, meaning that this would add considerable cost to the journey to obtain such a visa for travel to our country.

Most affected would be travel by young tourists, regular visits by ‘swallows’, family holidays, business travel, the film industry, and volunteers.

Western Cape Minister of Economic Development, Tourism, and Agriculture Alan Winde has announced that he has instructed his Red Tape unit to investigate whether the promulgated changes are constitutional. No tourism participation process was followed with any tourism authorities in altering the regulations.

Cape Town Tourism CEO Enver Duminy is not known for questioning anything, publicly that is,  in his one year tenure, so it is surprising to see his strongly worded media release issued yesterday.  He said that the regulations pose a serious threat to tourism growth.   ‘Whilst many countries are doing their utmost to make travel user-friendly, we are building barriers.  This not bode well for our efforts to attract developing markets and it will certainly be a deterrent to those wanting to enjoy extended stays in Cape Town‘, he said

Cape Town Tourism, Wesgro,  FEDHASA, Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA), South African Association for the Conference Industry, the City of Cape Town’s Tourism, Events and Marketing Directorate, and the Western Cape Tourism ministry are all making representations to the national Department of Tourism in this regard.  New Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom has already had consultations with his Department of Home Affairs colleague Malusi Gigaba.

Rob Kucera, new FEDHASA Cape Chairman, said: ‘We are concerned that we were not taken into confidence before the amendments were drafted and later approved.  Consequently, this will have a negative business impact on tourism, which currently contributes more than R93 billion to the country’s GDP and over 61000 direct jobs’.

 Should the new Immigration regulations not be amended, Cape Town’s status as a world class tourism destination will be severely affected.   None of us as tourism players can afford for this to happen.

POSTSCRIPT 14/6: A petition has been created, to request Home Affairs Minister Gigaba to reconsider the Immigration Regulation changes:

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage