REBOOT SA

Rebooting South Africa as a destination

Given the current travel restrictions in place for international travel, inwards and outwards, imposed on South Africa and the impact that this is having on the tourism and related sectors, a recent newspaper headline “6 SA cities make top 20 list of the most dangerous cities in the world” (Independent on Saturday, 6 February 2021) garnered attention.

By Peter Bagshawe

The data set was released by numbero.com which is a Serbian-based online database being, apparently, the world’s largest source of user contributed information that provides reports on consumer pricing, crime rates and health care quality, amongst others. The database and its model have been criticised in that it relies on individual input and there is no third party audit on information received. Despite this, the main point of interest is that the information represents an overview of the risk as perceived by residents of a particular location at the time of completion of a standardised survey. As a balancing factor, data is retained for statistical purposes for up to 36 months in respect of any location.

In the numbero.com rating on 431 cities listed in the review there was a tight South African cluster that had Pretoria in third place, followed by Durban in fourth place and Johannesburg in fifth place. Further down the listing, Pietermaritzburg came in seventh place, Port Elizabeth at fourteenth and Cape Town placed nineteenth. The survey questions are not available for review but it is again emphasised that the results reflect the response of individuals living in the cities surveyed and, although probably subjective, reflect a living-in-it situation.

The norm is to base crime rates attributable to cities by available, accurate reported statistics, including cities with more than 300,000 residents and for the statistics to be linked to an annual period. The easiest crime to use – murder – in that the definition of the crime, remains similar internationally. Working from here, Wikipedia provides a listing of fifty cities by murder rate that shows that 46 cities are in the Americas and four are in South Africa. The data in the Wikipedia list is for the calendar year 2019 but, given that 2020 was the year of lockdown, to lesser and greater extents internationally, the use of the data for current purposes is justified. In the Wikipedia listing, Cape Town is ranked at fourth, Nelson Mandela Bay at 24th, Durban at 35th and Johannesburg at 42nd. It is noted in a side bar to the tabulation that Cape Town had the highest number of murders for any city listed.

The opening of the economy and return to normal of the hospitality industry, in its broadest sense, has been a focus point for the industry and Government.

Restaurants, hotels, bed and breakfasts, brewers, vintners and the distilling sector were hard hit in the initial lockdown and again with the second set of restrictions imposed at the end of 2020. The impact of restrictions imposed on travel from South Africa related to the discovery of the 501Y.V2 Covid variant has been extreme and this is demonstrable by a review of flights into South Africa. The two major hubs for incoming international flights are OR Tambo International, servicing Gauteng, and Cape Town International Airport. Following the initial imposition of restrictions at the end of January 2021 only nine of the usual 24 regional and international operated out of Cape Town International Airport. OR Tambo International Airport was similarly affected with KLM, Lufthansa, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic all announcing suspension or curtailment of routes.

Turkish Airlines, Emirates, and Qatar Airlines have also continued on a curtailed schedule. In the period October 2020 to early January 2021 international flights into South Africa were approaching 50% passenger occupancy and incoming passenger numbers at 20% of pre-Covid levels. This position has now been negated.

The hotel, hospitality and restaurant sector in most of the tourist destinations has been impacted by lockdown, prohibitions on the serving of alcohol, seating capacity reductions, curfews, altered working patterns, supply chain constrictions and low economic activity for almost a full year. In 2019 South Africa received slightly more than 10 million visitors with an estimated R27 billion income flowing into the economy from these visitors. The majority of visitors would have occupied hotel rooms, eaten at restaurants and have contributed to the income, not only of the hospitality industry, but also supported some 722,000 employees in the tourism sector. Taken in a wider context forecasts are that about 1,6 million jobs may be lost in South Africa as a direct result of the Covid pandemic. In 2020 the available local employment figure for the workforce was 16,37 million employed – simply stated, 10% of the jobs in the formal sector are currently projected to be at risk.

Internationally, the focus to combat Covid and bring economies back to a form of equilibrium is on mass vaccination programs. These depend, largely, on a supply of available – and sufficient – vaccine units and the logistical mechanism to administer the vaccinations. Minister of Heath Zweli Mkhize announced a vaccination rollout that targeted the administration of vaccines initially to essential service workers, totalling some 1,5 million doses being given by the end of March 2021. By year-end 2021 the target was for 40 million south Africans to have been vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity. This program was geared around using the AstraZeneca vaccine and, after the decision to suspend the use of AstraZeneca’s product, the Johnson and Johnson single dose vaccine has been used in the Sisonke study and is being administered to health service workers. Delivery of the Johnson and Johnson product is at a slower pace than initially projected with the provision of AstraZeneca vaccines out of India. Currently, Government estimates are that by the end of April 500,00 health care workers will have been vaccinated with the Johnson and Johnson product. At the time of writing 207,808 vaccines have been administered with an average daily rate of vaccination being in the order of 5,700 units. At this rate it will take almost 16 years to administer sufficient vaccines to reach herd immunity. Given the rate of vaccination in other countries, the inability of our Government to mount an effective program will likely not lead to the lifting of travel restrictions or incentivise the mass return of tourists. The experience of the rate of infection increasing with the advent of cooler weather indicates the prospect of a third wave prior to winter as a real possibility over the coming months which will require further remedial action and probably impact on international perceptions.

The return of our economy to anything resembling pre-Covid levels depends on a number of factors, some of which are outside any form of realistic local control. It seems that attitudes to working (remote work v office) and travel are undergoing fundamental reviews, and changes in patterns will take place. Making South Africa more attractive as a destination needs urgent intervention on the health and policing/security fronts, infrastructure and amenities need to be boosted along with transport infrastructure amongst other areas.

PETER BAGSHAWE holds a Bachelor of Law degree from the former University of Rhodesia and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the Witwatersrand.