At the Tourism Ministers’ meeting in Cape Town, the BRICS countries decided to promote intra-BRICS travel, with focus on sustainable and inclusive tourism recovery.

As part of the South African presidency of BRICS nations grouping, South African Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille hosted BRICS Tourism Ministers’ meeting in Cape Town.

According to a press statement, the BRICS Tourism Ministers’ Meeting for 2023 provided an opportunity for exchange of information and experiences as well as deepen cooperation among BRICS Members to reach consensus on key policy priorities for a balanced tourism recovery.

South Africa’s chairship of BRICS has promoted a dialogue among BRICS Members and built on the successes of the previous chairs as well as advance the aspirations of the BRICS Summits where the leaders acknowledged, among others the urgent need for tourism sector’s recovery and the importance of increasing intra-BRICS tourism for a more resilient, sustainable and inclusive tourism sector, said de Lille on the occasion.

The statement adds that to ensure continuity and leverage on the combined strength of BRICS Members, South Africa’s theme for chairing BRICS Tourism in 2023 is “Sustainable and inclusive tourism recovery”, aligned to the overall theme of SA’s chairship.

‘‘Our goal as the hosts of the BRICS Tourism Ministers meeting was to map the way forward on clear actions we need to take as partners to grow inclusive tourism between our countries. My goal is clear that we need to work harder to grow tourism through new and innovative travel packages, implement joint marketing strategies and address obstacles that stand in the way of this growth. We need to work together as BRICS nations to increase air access and ease visa regimes to ensure seamless travel between our countries,’’ de Lille said.
 
She added that the current year has already seen great success with direct flights returning from Air China, the return of the direct flight from Brazil’s LATAM airlines and SAA’s direct flight between Cape Town and Brazil and Johannesburg and Brazil, taking off in the coming weeks.

‘‘As stated by President Cyril Ramaphosa following the BRICS Summit in August this year, our international work cannot be separated from our efforts to end poverty, to create jobs and to reduce inequality in South Africa. Through stronger investment and trade relations with other countries, we are able to grow our economy, create more opportunities for new businesses and reduce unemployment,” de Lille said.

According to the press statement, the BRICS Summit made several decisions to take forward the struggle for a fairer and more inclusive world order that is focused on the equal development of all peoples.

‘‘We have already achieved great benefit from our relations with Brazil, Russia, India and China. These countries are important destinations for South Africa’s products and services. They are important sources of investment and are becoming even more important as tourism markets. Tourism is a key sector to enhance economic growth and across the world, the tourism sector is bouncing back,’’ de Lille said.

‘‘As South Africa, our tourism recovery is well underway and we are especially seeing significant growth in arrivals from BRICS nations. For the first eight months of 2023, South Africa saw 5.5 million arrivals, this was a 63.4 pc increase from the same period in 2022,’’ the South African minister said. 

In terms of recovery from the BRICS nations, South Africa saw a 70.1 pc increase in arrivals from the Russian Federation between January and August 2023, as compared to pre-pandemic period. 

“Arrivals from Brazil, India and China for the first eight months of 2023 are still below 2019 levels but we are confident that with the direct flights, we will see recovery from these key source markets in the coming months. In terms of the visa regime, we are happy to report that visitors from Brazil and Russia are listed as visa exempt countries meaning these travellers do not require a visa to enter South Africa for a period of up to 90 days. China and India are part of the first 34 countries on South Africa’s e-visa system,’’ she added.