Picture: Armand Hough/Independent Newspapers

South African tourism businesses are hopeful that the appointment of the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTOS) will result in a surge of international tourists from India and China, two of the world’s most populated countries, as the scheme accelerates the visa application process.

This comes after the Department of Home Affairs today announced the selection of 65 participants in its TTOS, which is aimed at boosting tourism from China and India to create jobs.

The scheme was gazetted by the department at the end of October last year, just two months after work began following consultations with the tourism sector and the Minister of Tourism about how visa inefficiency and red tape throttles South Africa’s ability to attract more tourists from these two burgeoning source markets.

Research indicates that boosting tourism by only 10% per year can increase annual economic growth by 0.6% and create thousands of new jobs for South Africans.

Today, Leon Schreiber, Minister of Home Affairs, said that the participants included some of the biggest industry players in China, India and South Africa.

Original article can be found here