TOURISM SECTOR RECOVERY BY CHARNDRÉ EMMA KIPPIE
SA Tourism:
Where to from here? The New Norms Early last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa revealed that his Cabinet had approved brand new standards and regulations for safer operations to be implemented in the South African tourism sector. This was decided keeping Covid-19 and other future pandemics in mind. Talking on the new norms and standards, as well as important health and safety procedures, Acting Minister in the Presidenc,y Khumbudzo Ntshavheni added that: “This will ensure uniformity across the tourism sector... They will cover services such as accommodation, food, tour operators, casinos, weddings and other related activities.” Acting Minister Ntshavheni also noted that the launch of these new regulations should place South Africa on the same level as international markets, and
may enable the tourism sector to be completely open for international tourist arrivals. As of recently, the country has maintained its open borders for incoming international tourists, as a result of eased lockdown restrictions which occurred mid-2020.
We are now in the recovery phase, and a summit of this nature is critical in ensuring that we are aligned as a continent Unfortunately, however, other countries have not reciprocated in this approach, and South Africans are facing strict travel restrictions. This situation has also had an impact on tourists who are hesitant to visit South Africa due to the difficulties experienced when returning home.
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SA Tourism Challenges • The Tourism 2020 report, composed by Statistics South Africa, indicates that all foreign arrivals in the country had dropped by 71% from just over 15, 8 million in 2019. •
This number then dropped by 5 million in 2020.
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The overall number of travellers (arrivals and departures) decreased by 71,0% between 2019 and 2020.
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The overall number of travellers decreased by 50,7% over a 15-year period from nearly 24,6 million recorded in 2006 to 12,1 million travellers recorded in 2020.
Revitalising the Sector The Department of Tourism and South African Tourism recently announced that they’d be hosting Africa’s first ever
