Cape Town to approach new Tourism Minister to open up SA’s air transport market

STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH, ALDERMAN JAMES VOS

On behalf of the City of Cape Town, I have written to the newly appointed Minister of Tourism, Patricia de Lille, to welcome her into her new position, and to highlight the critical areas within this portfolio that need immediate action.

In my communications, I highlighted the campaign spearheaded by the City of Cape Town to enact a remote worker visa – an issue that I brought to the attention of Minister de Lille’s predecessor, Lindiwe Sisulu.

Cape Town is already a highly favoured location for digital nomads. Enabling the visa – with specific parameters – would simply require National Government to make provisions in the Immigration Act for a period longer than three months. Other countries have had great success with this type of visa and it would give South Africa greater appeal to a far broader category of tourists.

I first proposed the remote worker model after the lifting of the lockdown when Covid-19 almost wiped out the travel and hospitality sectors. Since then, we have been lobbying for the introduction of a remote working visa because of its massive economic spinoffs for the industry. Our research shows that a special visa would help attract more international visitors, particularly ‘digital nomads’ who can work virtually from anywhere in the world.

I implore National Government to act with haste in rolling out an improved visa system, including that of the remote worker visa. We can’t afford to wait any longer.

Those working in the tourism industry will tell you that everything is about timing and certainty. And for businesses time is money.

Lastly, we need the Minister to put further pressure on the National Transport Department to implement open skies, which means opening up the country’s air transport market.

I pointed out that where implemented, it has resulted in increased utilisation of airspace, more competitive fares and more choices for travellers. This will need National Government to liberalise measures.

It is through tourism that we can kick our economy into high gear. A recent report showed that South Africa’s tourism sector is forecasted to grow at an average rate of 7,6% annually over the next decade and by 2032, the sectoral contribution to the GDP could create over 800 000 jobs. We must take these steps to realise these gains for our people.

All these issues speak to goals set out in the City’s Ten Point Tourism Strategy aimed at breathing life back into the sector. They will also be included in my tourism plan to help create a tourism related job in every household in Cape Town through city-to-city connections to drive demand from specific source markets, clever campaigns backed up with conversion leading to increased bookings and destination marketing to attract more visitors.