Chennai, 27 Oct 2026: South African Tourism is strengthen ing its engagement with the Indian travel trade to build aware ness and understanding of South Africa’s new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) process, supporting trade partners in guiding eligible Indian travellers through the digital system.
Through stake holder interactions and knowledge-sharing initiatives, the organi sation is working to familiarise the trade with the process, address queries and facilitate a smoother pre-travel experience for visitors to South Africa.
The introduction of the ETA marks an important step towards making travel to South Africa simpler and more convenient for eligible Indian travellers.
The digital process enables travellers to complete key travel authorisation formalities online, reducing paper work and streamlining the pre-travel journey. The ETA is designed to facilitate faster proces sing, with authori sation highlighted as being available within 48 hours. As part of these efforts, South African Tourism conducted its first digital ETA workshop for the Pune travel trade on 22 September 2026, in collaboration with South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs (DHA).
The session brought toge ther 65 trade partners and provided an oppor tunity to introduce the new process, walk partici pants through the application journey and address practical queries around time lines, child applications, group handling and other aspects of the system.
The engage ment also enabled travel partners to gain greater clarity on the process and better prepare to guide their clients.
Neliswa Nkani, Acting Hub Head, South African Tourism, said, “Our travel trade partners play an important role in helping Indian travellers discover South Africa, and it is important that they have the clarity and confidence to guide their clients through new processes such as the ETA.
Engaging directly with our partners allows us to address their questions, understand their needs and help them navigate these developments.
We remain committed to working closely with the trade to build aware ness of the ETA and support a smoother travel experience for eligible Indian travellers to South Africa.”