SA gives travel the green light

Travel reporter

The tourism and hospitality sector’s survival is dependent on international leisure travellers in the summer season. – David Maynier

WITH South Africa moving to level 1 of the Covid-19 lockdown, the easing of travel regulations has been among the key focus areas.

“We expect that travellers will prefer to travel to countries that offer greater diversity of attractions so that they don’t have to travel multiple countries to enjoy different activities.

“With the risk of the virus spread on a downward trend, South Africa is arguably among the safest tourist destinations in the world.

“It is important to comply with regulations and protocols established at ports of entry, to be honest in declaring your health status and fully disclose information as required for health screening. We also urge travellers to plan their trips in detail, and use credible tour operators.”

She reminded South Africans who were travelling to observe the proper safety protocols: “Let’s protect ourselves, let’s wear masks, let’s wash our hands and let’s continue to practice social distancing. We are hopeful that South Africans will continue to take all the necessary precautions to protect themselves so that we can continue to reduce the spread of the virus.”

Is it unfair to restrict leisure travellers from high-risk countries? While many organisations have welcomed the reopening of South Africa’s international borders, but many are not happy about the strategy the government has taken.

David Maynier, Western Cape MEC of Finance and Economic Opportunities, said the risk-based approach regulating international travel released by the national government was a major blow for the tourism and hospitality sector in the province.

“The tourism and hospitality sector’s survival is dependent on international leisure travellers in the summer season. For this reason, it is critical that we look at smart ways to open our international borders, especially for our key source markets, so that we can save jobs and save the economy in the Western Cape,” said Maynier.

He said it was unfair to restrict leisure travellers from high-risk countries as there was no greater risk of transmission based on the purpose of travel. On the issue of high-risk countries, Maynier said South Africa’s airlines, hospitality and tourism companies had shown that travel and tourism could resume safely and, with stringent health and safety systems in place, it should not be necessary to impose additional country-based travel restrictions.

“We are also concerned that the two-week review period of the leisure ’no-travel list’, together with the requirement that business travellers from high-risk countries email the Department of Home Affairs for permission to travel, will create a barrier to bookings from visitors in traditional key source markets during the critical summer season. It also does not allow for enough lead time on which airlines can base their decisions to fly, creating further uncertainty for a sector that has already been hard-hit.”

COUNTRIES THAT MAKE UP SA’S BANNED LEISURE TRAVEL LIST:

Dominican Republic Ecuador Faroe Islands France French Polynesia Georgia Gibraltar Greece Guam Guatemala Guyana Honduras Hungary Iceland India Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Jamaica Jordan Kosovo Kuwait Lebanon Luxembourg Maldives Malta Mexico Moldova Monaco Montenegro Netherlands Nepal North Macedonia Oman Palestine Panama Palau Paraguay Portugal Puerto Rico Romania Qatar Russia San Marino St Martin Slovakia Slovenia Suriname Switzerland Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands Ukraine UK US US Virgin Islands Venezuela