This app aims to make sense of South Africa’s new child visa regulations

South Africa’s tourism industry and department of home affairs have been at logger heads ever since the latter introduced new visa regulations for adults traveling with children. The regulations, which came into force on 1 June, have been blamed for falling tourist rates in the country. In a bid to curb that effect, South African car rental agency Drive South Africa has launched an app aimed at simplifying the new child visa regulations.

The app, available on web or mobile, is a visa checklist tool for people travelling into or out of South Africa with children.

Launched to coincide with the new regulations, the child visa checklist app allows users to view and print a checklist of documents specific to their child-travel scenario, in three clicks (or taps in the case of mobile). The three-step process is powered by a 37-node decision tree running behind the scenes.

The visa regulations are meant to bring South Africa in line with the UK and US and are designed to prevent child trafficking, as well as domestic child-custody disputes between divorced or separated parents.

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“The only problem is, these regulations were launched with little consultation with the tourism industry, are rather confusing and might even make people think twice about travelling to South Africa,” Andre Van Kets, co-founder and marketing director of Drive South Africa, said in an official press release.

“This confusion, and the harm it might cause South African tourism, prompted the development of this simple to use web app, which cuts through the legal jargon and helps South Africans and non-South Africans alike know exactly what they need when travelling to and from the country with their children.”

According to a report released in June, South Africa lost 66 000 foreign tourists due to changes in the immigration regulations.

“In 2015,” the report says, “the number of lost foreign tourists due to changes in the immigration regulations is likely to increase to 100 000, with a direct tourism spend of R1.4bn and the total net loss to the South African GDP of around R4.1-billion and a loss of 9 300 jobs.”

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According to Van Kets, the app was initially conceived as a way of helping the company’s internal team of travel consultants better understand the new regulations, but turned into an open source web app, accessible from any browser.

It was built in consultation with family law attorney Megan Harrington-Johnson of Johannesburg-based legal firm Schindlers Attorneys, and has had over 11,000 users from 123 countries since it launched.

Van Kets said the app will give parents confidence when travelling in and out of South Africa with children under 18 years old, and remove all uncertainty faced by parents trying to work out exactly which documents they need when travelling with their youngsters.