KZN tourism industry ready for Easter
THE KwaZulu-Natal tourism industry says it is ready to welcome tourists to the province for the upcoming Easter long weekend.
The industry said businesses across all districts had been made aware of the importance of having Covid-19 protocols in place to ensure the safety of tourists and employees.
Cheryl Peters, the chief executive of Ilembe Enterprise on the North Coast, said they had been engaging with businesses to ensure that protocols were followed.
Peters said businesses were aware that it was their responsibility to ensure the safety of tourists and workers.
According to Peters, the district was sitting on a 70% booking occupancy for the Easter weekend.
The main reason why they hadn’t reached full capacity was because of the uncertainty around possible tighter lockdown restrictions being imposed, she said.
“We have been receiving a lot of enquiries regarding that matter, but unfortunately, we are also still waiting for confirmation,” she said.
She said their target for the long weekend was 80-90% occupancy.
Peters said that in December last year, the districts had 100% occupancy before the government announced further restrictions and moved the country back to lockdown level 3.
Occupancy then dropped to 50%, she said, which hit the industry hard as businesses were banking on the December holidays to make up for losses incurred earlier in the year.
Peters said with the long weekend and also schools being closed, businesses were hoping that they would be able to make up some of the lost revenue.
Marian Evans, the Midlands Meander Association general manager, said their members were ready to welcome tourists as Covid-19 safety measures were in place.
“We are just hoping that we don’t have another lockdown before the Easter weekend. However, we are ready and all our members are looking forward to it.”
Ugu South Coast Tourism chief executive Phelisa Mangcu said that the district was sitting at about 65% booking occupancy, with bookings made at the weekend still to be tallied.
Mangcu said that according to their projections, they were confident that by the end of this week, they would be at 90% to 100% occupancy.
“After the country moved to lockdown level 1, we prepared for December and unfortunately the country went back to level 3 of the lockdown,” she said.
She said the South Coast was a popular holiday destination and they had last reached 100% occupancy in November last year.
However, the district has been experiencing a lot of violent protests as residents demanded that water supply be restored to areas including Izingolweni.
Mangcu said that they were concerned about the ongoing protests.
She said that the issue of water supply was a serious concern for businesses as it could affect the tourism industry.
However, Mangcu said the Ugu District Municipality has assured them that they were trying to find a permanent solution to the issue.
The KZN Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (Edtea) said the province was ready to welcome visitors.
The department’s spokesperson, Bheki Mbanjwa, said the department was working with their partners in the tourism sector to ensure the province was ready to host visitors.
“The industry has assured us that the safety of the visitors has been the number one priority.
“The tourism sector is one of the major job creators for KZN and that is why the department has put a lot of effort into resuscitating this sector following the devastation caused by Covid-19,” he said.