Marketing countries all about making tourists feel welcome

I must say, it did my heart good. Because at the time I was trying to organise a dreaded Schengen Visa for my son who is wanting to go and visit an uncle in Europe in December.

Nightmare

It is an absolute nightmare of bureaucracy. It has taken a month so far and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel as more and more stumbling blocks are tossed in his way by arrogant, officious and unsympathetic foreign consulate staff. And heaven forbid if you get anything wrong and your visa is sent back for more documentation or to cross an "i" or dot a "t" - back you go and have to pay the R700 fee all over again.

But, that dreaded Schengen Visa allowing South Africans grudging access to European countries is not the only bit of bureaucracy about. While Australians can get into South Africa without a visa, we, on the other hand, have to go through a particularly complex and painful process to get a visa to visit them. It's even worse getting into the United States.

Racial profiling

And while we don't need visas to get into the UK, there was Tokyo Sexwale subjected to blatant racial profiling at the immigration desk at Heathrow Airport.

South Africans, for example, need visas to get into Europe; Australians don't. So, there is no question in my mind that apart from being blatantly racist in their attitude to South African tourists, the Europeans, Americans and Australians clearly don't give a toss about what amounts discrimination of the worst kind.

Feel welcome

And maybe they should worry, because I am hearing of more and more people in this country saying that they will boycott countries with these overly harsh visa requirements and choose instead to go on holiday in countries that make one feel welcome.

Personally I think that's a great idea. And hats off to South Africa for making it easy for everyone to come and visit us.

Of course, there is a lot of argument about harsh visa conditions being necessary in countries that are the target of illegal immigration or terrorism.

Ludicrous notion

But, frankly, when you think about it , visas have very little to do with efficient security. Because they're like a chain store stopping every customer coming in and making them prove that they actually are who they say they are and that they have enough money to actually buy something and that they put down some sort of cash deposit as a comittment to buying something.

This would undoubtedly annoy a lot of customers and probably won't result in catching too many shoplifters because when one assumes everyone is a potential crook, security is unwieldy, monotonous and eventually becomes lax and the bad guys slip through.

There must be far more consumer-friendly ways of monitoring visitors. Visas are just an easy way out for governments who cannot be bothered. And they're making cash paying customers feel most unwelcome.

Farcical security

And the farcical nature of security has been proved by the US and UK recently deciding to partially lift the ban on passengers carrying liquids onto aircraft by only allowing those purchased in duty free shops on board. Because they are safer? Not at all. It must be a doddle for a terrorist gang to smuggle anything they like into a duty free area. The UK and USA lifted the ban because money was involved. Airports were going to lose revenue if duty free shops were affected.

Frankly, I am going to go along with this growing band of South Africans who will quite simply refuse to visit countries where they are made to feel so unwelcome by these ridiculously harsh visa conditions.

And well done to South Africa for making it easy for so many tourists from so many countries to come and visit us without visa hassles.