Covid-19 Coronavirus: South African Tourism Update

In efforts to aid the recovery of the global tourism sector, South African Tourism and Qatar Airways, hosted a webinar featuring over 300 global trade partners. Focused on showcasing the work that both South African Tourism and Qatar Airways are doing to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector, the webinar also aimed to engage with global trade to ensure alignment of efforts whilst emphasizing the commitment of both South African Tourism and Qatar Airways.

In a partnership that can best be described as aiming for the stars, South African Tourism (SA Tourism) and Netflix, the world’s leading streaming service have agreed to explore joint opportunities that will benefit both organizations to showcase stories made in South Africa, and watched by the world.

South Africa has a wide variety of accommodation establishments that cater for the varying needs of both domestic and international travellers.  As the custodian of quality assurance and service excellence, the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA), a business unit of South African Tourism, has rolled out the pilot phase of the Basic Quality Verification (BQV) programme, in the Eastern Cape.

South African Tourism through its business unit, Tourism Grading Council of South Africa continues to create a platform for new and existing tourism products to showcase themselves to local and international tour operators, with the aim of building a quality visitor experience through Virtual Speed Marketing sessions. Speed Marketing is a market access platform created to provide tourism businesses an opportunity to interact and forge business relationships between products and buyers (Tour operators and DMCs who are already packaging and selling the destination or have interest in doing so).

Google Arts & Culture (GAC) and SA Tourism today announced South Africa: An Explorer’s Paradise, an online exhibition where visitors from all over the world can explore South Africa through a collection of 500 images and videos, 55 Street Views and 20 exhibits. This is the first phase in a long-term collaboration to celebrate South Africa’s diverse people, its rich cultural heritage and its breathtaking landscapes.

Cape Town will increase to seven weekly flights, Durban increased to three weekly flights, while Johannesburg increased to 18 weekly flights, offering passengers more flexible and reliable travel options By March 2021, Qatar Airways will operate 28 weekly flights from South Africa Airline’s young mixed fleet of sustainable aircraft has enabled it to continue flying throughout the pandemic and rebuild its global network to more than 800 weekly flights to over 120 destinations via the Best Airport in the Middle East

South African accommodation establishments are geared up to receive guests in a safe and responsible manner, in line with the COVID-19 health and safety protocols. A health and safety protocols study conducted by the South African Tourism (SA Tourism) Insights and Analytics team and the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA) has shown that 95% of graded establishment were confident with their level of implementation of the COVID-19 Protocols.

The impact of COVID-19 was felt in all industries and sectors around the world. The business events industry which includes Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) was one of the hardest hit. The industry experienced large scale cancellations and postponements and had to adopt a safety-first approach.

While domestic tourism is still far from full recovery, all indications signal a glimmer of hope on the horizon. When South Africa went into lockdown on 26 March 2020, both domestic and international travel came to a standstill.  The easing of lockdown levels at the start of June ushered in domestic business travel. In late July, intra-provincial travel opened up which meant that South Africans could travel within their provinces. This was shortly followed by the opening of inter-provincial travel, spurring life into the domestic travel market.

With the steady increase in the number of COVID-19 infections, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that South Africa will remain on adjusted Level 3, according to the country’s risk adjusted strategy.

President Ramaphosa confirmed that South Africa will move to an adjusted Level 3 on the risk adjusted framework.

South African Tourism (SA Tourism), through its business unit, the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA), launched an initiative to support graded establishments in the COVID-19 hotspot areas as identified by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 14th December 2020.