The taxes, fees and charges on a flight within Southern Africa run 49% above the global benchmark. The figure comes from Aaron Munetsi, CEO of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa. A region trying to grow cross-border tourism is making it more expensive than the global norm to move people between its own countries.
Munetsi gave the figure at a side event co-convened by the SADC Secretariat and the Southern Africa Tourism Alliance (SATA) at Africa’s Travel Indaba 2026 in Durban. Visas, border efficiency and air access were all on the agenda, three angles on the same challenge. As SATA Project Lead Natalia Rosa told delegates, “Regional connectivity is the single most important strategic conversation the tourism sector should be having right now. Every other conversation, about brand, about positioning, about the growth of our visitor economy, is downstream of it.”
The machinery to achieve the goals set out in the SADC Tourism Programme 2020-2030 is moving. The SADC UniVisa is working through the inter-ministerial process towards the Heads of State Summit in August, a border post audit begins in July, and the air access study is complete and under review.
What industry is asking for
The private sector used the session to table proposals. Munetsi called for aviation policy, taxation and pilot licensing to be aligned across the region. Jillian Blackbeard, CEO of Africa’s Eden Tourism Association, proposed a SADC-wide border training programme with dedicated tourist channels and consistent procedures at crossings, the kind of standard the July audit could adopt.
Dimakatso Malwela, President of Women of Value Southern Africa, took the conversation somewhere it usually does not go. Her proposal, a supply development pilot across three to five member states, would bring women-led businesses into the tourism value chain and report measurable results inside twelve months. Her point was that connectivity moves visitors, but it does not decide who earns from them.
A live delegate poll showed where the consensus lay. New intra-regional air routes and one-stop posts at the busiest crossings were named as the changes most likely to shift things within two years.
The case for Team Tourism
“Team Tourism” kept coming up, because the reforms now under way only work when government and industry pull in the same direction. Governments can set the visa frameworks, the border procedures and the aviation policies, but none of it reaches a visitor unless the private sector is ready to act on it: itineraries built, operators briefed, agents able to sell the region as one place, not one country at a time.
Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa and SATA Chair, put the obligation on both sides. “Apex bodies across SADC must commit to coordinated action,” he said. “Governments cannot respond to fragmented briefs.”
On the UniVisa, the ICT systems, legal frameworks and revenue-sharing models are built, benchmarked against the KAZA UniVisa and the East African Tourism Visa. The founding group of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe provides a strong foundation for a pilot, and the August Summit is one of several moments where the pilot could be formalised.
A shared visa already makes travel between Zambia and Zimbabwe easier, so the model is proven. Scaling it is a step only government can take. The UniVisa needs an implementation roadmap and a go-live date. The air access study needs a public position on what proceeds, and by when. The July border audit is the moment to ensure training translates into consistent regional standards.
The private sector is getting ready, which is why SATA will keep pressing for all three together. A visa with no routes behind it, or open borders with no air access to use them, helps no one. Move them as one, hold every party to its part, and Southern Africa finally connects itself.
