Johannesburg – In just three months, more than 11,000 tourists from China and India have obtained digital visas and traveled to South Africa through the Digital Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTO).
Since welcoming the first tour group attracted South Africa through the TTOS digital platform in late February, Home Minister Dr. Leon Schreiber announced Tuesday (my 27th 2025).
The department has revealed that the amount of applications has grown consistently from an average of 50 per day in March to 135 per day in April, and 210 per day so far.
“These are tourists who would otherwise not have come to South Africa given the challenges experienced in obtaining tour group visas from China and India,” the department said in a statement.
The latest research, driven by Operation Vulindlela, shows that one new job is being created for every 13 tourists visiting the country, suggesting that the TTO has already created 857 new tourism jobs from February with this one reform alone.
Under the TTO, the department said it will partner with 65 tour operators under a risk sharing model that allows access to digital platforms to submit and receive visa results for tour groups from China and India.
Before introducing TTO, travelers from these major source markets, home to over 2.8 billion people, had to previously have to distance themselves to submit paper visa applications.
The department said the TTOS visa was consistently delivered digitally within hours via a secure online platform.
Conceptualizing the scheme, Minister Schreiber said:
“But after three months of operation, it is already clear that it has been overwhelmingly successful.
“In this short time, TTO has attracted over 11,000 tourists and is working with just 65 partners.
“This represents almost a third of all tourists from China who visited South Africa last year.”
The Minister said the success of the TTO shows great growth potential that can be unlocked by deploying a digital-only visa platform for not only group travel from these 65 partners, but for all tourists around the world.
Minister Schreiber added: “This is exactly what the interior affairs builds.
“In addition to shortly revealing the second intake of tour operators to further increase the number of group tours attracted through TTO, we are on track to provide a world-class electronic travel certification (ETA) system this year.
“The system fully digitizes and automates all tourism and short-term stay visas, ensuring that all tourists on the planet wanting to visit South Africa can obtain digital visas instantly and safely.
“This not only eliminates fraud and inefficiency, but also makes it the biggest reform possible to boost job creation in the tourism sector in decades, even if TTOS is unquestionable.”
