On February 23, the new Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, Minister Patricia de Lille and other government and tourism stakeholders, welcomed the first arrivals from China at the Cape Town International Airport. This is the first group of visitors to South Africa (SA) through the new digital Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTOS) visa initiative of the Department of Home Affairs, created under the new minister.
The 15 tourists and a tour guide experienced a true SA welcome on arrival. “This was an exciting moment in this ground-breaking initiative where the TTOS is providing a faster and more seamless process for visas for travellers from India and China. Together with the Department of Home Affairs we have worked tirelessly to make this happen and I commend Minister Leon Schreiber and his team in the Department of Home Affairs for the swift implementation of this new and improved visa initiative,” the Minister of Tourism, Patricia de Lille said. A huge backlog of visa applications hampered tourism to SA until Minister Schreiber from the DA took over. He managed to clear the back log in only seven months since he has been in this position. He was also responsible for creation of the new tools to drive international tourism to SA.
In 2025, an Inter-Ministerial Committee with the Departments of Tourism (DoT), Home Affairs, the State Security Agency andTrusted Tour Operator Scheme’s first visitors arrive in SA
Operation Vulindlela in the Presidency, was established to tackle the visa system and address the backlog. The ground-breaking Trusted Tour Operator Scheme will significant ease the process and allow for seamless visa applications for travellers and tour operators from India and China.
Commencing on February 12, the first group of 65 approved tour operators from SA, India and China started processing visa applications through the TTOS. India and China have been identified as two key source markets for SA to grow arrivals. A high number of tourists from these two countries regularly travel to SA, but this new system is designed to increase arrivals. Currently, South Africa receives 41 600 arrivals from India and 79 700 from China. SA’s international arrivals for 2024 were 8.9 million in total.
“The TTOS is a massive win for the tourism and business sector and the DoT will use the new visa initiatives as enablers to grow tourism arrivals to the country, which will in turn drive inclusive economic growth and job creation.
Through targeted outreach engagements in India and China, we have also been sharing the developments of the TTOS, the Electronic Travel Authorisation and Digital Nomad Visas with these two key source markets to ensure that more tour operators register and use these new and enhanced visa processes. We are extremely excited about these visa developments and what it means for the growth of the tourism sector. We have no doubt that the TTOS will exponentially increase arrivals from India and China which will stimulate demand across the tourism and services sector,” Minister de Lille concluded.
