Visa applications to India boom

IT’S been a bumper year
for travel to India, with
travel agents reporting
an unprecedented surge
in demand for travel to the
country in 2014.
Jose Cruz, national
executive customer services
manager of HRG Rennies
Travel, says in May this
year, Rennies found that
the demand for Indian visas
far surpassed the demand
for any other visas, even
Schengen. He attributes this
to a great number of trade
fairs that were held in India
during the month of May.
However, the surge in
demand was not limited to
just one month, he says.
Rennies has seen a steady
flow of travellers to India
from the South African
corporate market for some
time.
Dinesh Naidoo, group
operations director of
Serendipity, says the
increase in requests for
travel to India from South
Africa can be attributed to a
great number of government
delegations travelling
between the two countries,
as well as an increase
in exchange student
programmes. He adds that
with the establishment of
BRICS, numerous South
African companies have also
started opening offices and
doing business in India.
The favourable rate of
exchange of the rand against
the rupee, as opposed to the
rand against the euro and
the pound, could be also be
a contributing factor, says
Jose.
Medical tourism is also
a growing niche. Jose says
over the past few months,
he has seen a few travellers
suffering from advanced
stages of cancer heading
to India for medical care.
This is a trend we can
expect to see grow, as the
medical facilities in India are
exceptional, Jose says.
Valen Govender,
country manager of BLS
International, which
facilitates the issue of Indian
visas in South Africa, says
there has definitely been an
increase in demand for visas
to India.
He says, however, that it
is challenging to illustrate
this with figures, as since
October last year, BLS began
issuing multi-entry visas
instead of single entry visas
to India. “Previously, all visa
applications were issued
based on request. Travellers
usually asked for single
entry based on the duration
of visit. Since the end of
last year, we automatically
change each application
to six-month double entry
for tourists and one-year
multiple-entry for business
travellers. This is specifically
for South African passport
holders.”
Despite this, BLS has still
seen an overall increase in
applications. Valen says:
“We processed over 12 000
applications in the period
from February to July last
year and in excess of
13 000 for the same period
this year, surpassing last
year’s figure by over 700.”
The Indian government
announced in February
it would introduce visason-arrival
from October
onwards for South Africans,
but stakeholders are still
awaiting details.