Tourism Minister Dawdles While South African Industry Collapses
While safari and tourism operators hold their own protests, restaurants beg clients to return to empty spaces, and hundreds of thousands of people continue to lose their jobs, the Minister for Tourism says she will send her proposals for recovery of the sector to cabinet …. next month. The multibillion-rand tourism sector, which President Cyril […]
While safari and tourism operators hold their own protests, restaurants beg clients to return to empty spaces, and hundreds of thousands of people continue to lose their jobs, the Minister for Tourism says she will send her proposals for recovery of the sector to cabinet …. next month.
The multibillion-rand tourism sector, which President Cyril Ramaphosa has often held up as one of the main sectors that could save the economy, has been perhaps the worst hit by the three-month lockdown. Lodges and hotels and operators have been closed the whole time. Some hotels have started offering quarantine facilities just so that they can keep staff employed.
Yet the government, in another of its inexplicable decisions, continues to refuse opening any of it, while at the same time allowing commuters to pack dangerously close to one another in taxis for trips of up to 200 kilometres.
Tourism minister Mmamokolo Kubayi-Ngubane, in the meantime, has been less than visible. Today she released a statement saying the department was finalizing a tourism recovery plan with a view of submitting it to cabinet in August.
She said there would be several phases of recovery, from local community attractions through to international travel.
“Working together with various stakeholders we have put together the tourism Recovery plan and we are in the final stages of consultation,” her statement said.
She made lots of big promises, as the government has done many times before, regarding a smoother system for operators to register, the rollout of e-visas, global campaigns, the list goes on and on, but the question is how much of the tourism sector, which has been closed down for so long, will be left standing.
“We have also been engaging with global bodies so that we coordinate with our partners around the world, especially our source markets, in preparation for the sector recovery,” the minister said.
At this stage, lots of empty words.