FOCUS AREA 1: Setting out the regulatory context for reopening business

STRATEGIC FOCUS AREAS

FOCUS AREA 1:

Setting out the regulatory context for reopening business event travel and tourism in the Covid-19 environment in Africa

i) The journey of reopening business events tourism

The African continent is urged to find ways to start trading sooner rather than later, in order to stop job losses and alleviate unemployment and poverty. The business event travel and tourism sector has been proactive in making sure that industry-specific public health and safety protocol standards are developed and implemented in compliance with official governing bodies providing the stamp of approval. Continental authorities are therefore called upon to benefit from the fact that the continent reacted early and swiftly in instituting control measures at the outbreak of the pandemic, to further develop resilience strategies that will enable the sector restart business.

Adaptations to the new normal are critical for the continent to maximise its business event travel sector.

Such adaptations require the element of trust between authorities on the continent. The experts highlighted that in its current form, there is a lack of trust and uniformity in the way governments are implementing the rules, and people are therefore distrustful of the way that the rules are applied. It is therefore critical that governments on the continent develop clear guidelines and protocols, but even more importantly, that these have to be communicated in an accurate and unbiased manner. People should also be encouraged to obtain their information from reliable and reputable sources. Additionally, the business event tourism sector is also encouraged to use the key stakeholders and thought leaders in the industry to start ‘creating trust’ in the clients, in the corporates, and in the

business. While the industry is self-regulating, and currently putting great safety measures and protocols in place, there is need for a consistent effort in communicating the process aggressively and consistently. At a time where there is so much global and continental uncertainty due to the Covid-19 dynamic, silence and non-communication will further instil fear and uncertainty in an already fragile business event tourism and travel industry. In addition, the sector needs to create an environment of capacity building and strengthening. With the advent of the pandemic, new opportunities have arisen in the area of the digital economy. Conferences and meetings have migrated to online platforms. Across the continent, while countries have been adopting and adapting to digital platforms, there has been limited collaboration in terms of how such platforms are standardised, and how they are leveraged in terms implementation across country borders. Africa

therefore needs to push for greater and wider adoption and implementation of such platforms and Hybrid event integration. It is important to highlight the gradual but conscious expansion of conferencing facilities to include virtual conferences as an alternative in times of crisis such as current Covid-19 pandemic. Africa therefore should begin by creating structure and organisational policies that allow the continent to collaborate on such issues that require new thinking and innovation.

ii) Ensure the development of a crisis/ emergency management plan

A crisis or emergency management plan is not exclusive to pandemics. It is a necessary requirement for any situation requiring an outof-the-ordinary response in the dynamic tourism sector, from a natural disaster to a terrorist event to a civil uprising. As such, the business event travel and tourism industry is well versed in crisis or emergency management plans with extremely competent practitioners making the integration of additional Covid-19 safety protocols to existing knowledge around health, safety and emergency management possible. Public health and safety protocols should be standardised and National Tourism Boards across Africa need to be involved in placing emphasis on these processes by, for instance, inspections, monitoring and standardisation of Covid-19 and related safety protocols. Covid-19 provides an avenue for heightened emphasis on duty of care and establishing robust human capital management strategies. A tremendous amount of discipline and the development of a framework with a holistic approach to human capital management becomes a mutual responsibility. The institution of practical solutions in relation to how people could work together and how such collaborations will be communicated, implemented and monitored is critical. It is reiterated that, as a sector that is largely selfregulatory, the development of Covid-19 specific protocols should in earnest be seamless as they will be an addendum to existing protocols and the integration of the compliance will be easily implementable. More established countries within the industry would need to guide others in the establishment of the Covid-19 Zonal System, opposed to the country system of identification of hotspots. Resilient zones could then be established or determined based on the ability of the zone to demonstrate their preparedness. These proactive methods indicate that the whole of the business events and tourism industry is working together, instead of simply pursuing a sectoral response strategy. By adopting this approach, it is going to be easier to develop and adopt public health and safety compliance protocols. While some border closures (and) lockdown restrictions continue in some areas, in others, proper safety and health protocols are already drafted and ready for implementation once the decisions to start reopening the sector are issued.

iii) Relying on strong and established relationships

In tight-knit industries like the business event travel and tourism industry, the importance of building networks cannot be overemphasised. Especially in difficult and uncertain times such as that created

by the Covid-19 pandemic, the experts contributing viewpoints to this paper indicated the need for industry partners to build on their already existing strong relationships by establishing more resilient networks through collaboration. Accordingly, within the African context, and particularly within the business events and tourism environments, the need to reach out and to lean on strong, existing and trusted relationships is critical. Governments and industry partners are urged to establish platforms that create synergies, and give smaller players within the industry support during these uncertain times. The budgets required for furloughs during a crisis such as Covid-19 pales in comparison to amounts that some governments spend on military equipment. There is a clear indication that small suppliers related to the sector could easily continue to be supported by government initiatives, for example, by being released from certain agreements or given payment holidays in certain circumstances. African governments are urged to consider extensions of such support packages while the industry continues preparations for reopening under extremely trying circumstances with limited financial support from governments. Tourism is often the hidden giant of continental economic growth as many aspects of the industry are difficult to define making the economic impact of the sector difficult to measure. Business events and tourism associations should be given platforms through which they can come

together and create synergies that can be leveraged on in attracting and negotiating with global partners in relation to messaging and communication strategies. The focus should be on communicating clearly and collectively in unison the strategies that are being developed in preparation for the reopening of the sector in Africa, for Africa.

iv) Focus on regional markets, partnerships and collaboration to grow the MICE sector

Covid-19 accelerated the need to have systems in place and adapt to changes in the business event tourism environment. Africa currently attracts approximately 2% of the global MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) industry. This presents the continent with a substantial opportunity to utilise its existing assets to take advantage and attract more of the global MICE industry events to the continent. For this to materialise, the continent needs to adopt a proactive approach in collectively crafting its response strategy. The protocols and systems are critical to surviving this disruption. At the same time the industry needs to create trust and engender a high-level of comfort for travellers and clients. Business events are considered as collaboration generators, and the current Covid-19 environment has made it possible and necessitated the sharing of ideas on various online platforms. Furthermore, the slow reopening of the sector from online, to hybrid, to face-to-face will generate more opportunities for collaboration and networking opportunities amongst the industries that business events bring together, resulting in economic advancements for the continent.

Governments on the continent are further encouraged in the short-term to develop policies that will allow for the sector to promote both domestic and intra-Africa trade.

Associations should assist governments on the continent to prepare for the reopening because about 80% of all global MICE sector events come from associations.

By working together with associations, governments will be tapping into their local associations’ membership base. Allowing associations to meet and engage across Africa will create a ripple effect of more robust health and safety protocols across a variety of sectors via association meetings for sector specific improvements and implementation.