Tourism industry says safe travel is possible and urgent
‘We need to open access as far and as quickly as possible to stimulate recovery of our travel and tourism industry’
As the government weighs options on which overseas countries will be open for travel to and from SA and some key sources of tourists consider new measures to contain spikes in Covid-19 infections, players in the multibillion-rand industry said further travel restrictions or bans will derail any recovery.
The government has already indicated that travel within Africa will be open from October 1 in line with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement earlier in September that the country was moving to level 1 of the national lockdown.
However, the approach to countries that are deemed to be high risk is still unclear, with some of them traditionally the source of the highest-spending travellers to SA.
The tourism sector and related industries contributed close to 9% to SA’s GDP in 2019 and supported about 1.5-million jobs. About a third of the more than 10-million visitors who spent almost R120bn in the country in 2019 came from Europe, with the UK, which imposed new measures on Wednesday, the biggest market.
“We need to open access as far and as quickly as possible to stimulate recovery of our travel and tourism industry and indeed our economy,” Chris Zweigenthal, CEO of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa, told Business Day on Tuesday.
“Placing restrictions on travel will slow this process down and continue hardship experienced by many aviation, travel and tourism businesses.”
The lockdown pushed SA’s main airline operators — SAA and Comair — to the brink of collapse, with the Kulula operator joining the state-owned airline in business rescue.
The industry contributes about R180bn to SA’s economy and counts eight players.
Zweigenthal said it is important for the government to set its criteria soon to give operators time to prepare and set up the necessary protocols. He said the requirements for producing a negative Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours of the date of travel as well as screening before travel should minimise risks, even from countries with higher levels of infections.
“Passengers who are not well must not travel and we as passengers and citizens must continue to do the basics right: wear masks, social distancing, sanitising and washing hands.
“Government should note all the measures that have been taken by our industry and open our borders.”
Labeeqah Schuurman, the acting head of destination marketing at the Western Cape’s trade and investment promotion agency Wesgro, said the local aviation industry had shown that flying could be done safely.
The biggest challenge is to prevent infected people from travelling, which made testing before departure necessary.
The global aviation industry body, the International Air Transport Association (Iata), called for the development and deployment of rapid, accurate, affordable and easy-to-operate testing as an alternative to quarantine measures.
It said that international travel is 92% down on 2019 levels.
“Testing all passengers will give people back their freedom to travel with confidence,” Alexandre de Juniac, Iata’s director-general and CEO, said in a statement.
“And that will put millions of people back to work.”—
Travel within Africa will resume from October 1, but the approach to high-risk countries remains unclear