The government’s recent lifting of the PCR test for fully vaccinated inbound travellers is too little to significantly boost the travel industry and has come too late — meaning the country has lost another tourism season.
“We’ve lost the entire summer,” said Rosemary Anderson, chair of the Federated Hospitality Association of SA (Fedhasa).
“It’s a good step in the right direction, but there’s a small nuance that will have a lingering effect on family travel.”
According to the new regulations, announced little more than a week ago, children under the age of five are exempt from having to furnish either a vaccination certificate or a negative PCR test to travel to SA — meaning that children between six and 12 have to undergo the test, which is expensive “and often onerous to obtain”.
“It’s crazy because we don’t even vaccinate children of that age here, and requiring visiting children to have the PCR test requirement is a major deterrent,” said Anderson.
“Our main source market is the UK, where they have the NHS [National Health Service] which means they don’t have private clinics and health providers everywhere like we do.
"So testing before departure means they have to go to a main city to have it done, and with the 12-hour deadline — because the 24-hour test is too long — means having to leave a day earlier and an extra night in a hotel,” she explained.
“And on top of this is the cost. The test is £150, amounting to about R3,000 or so per person. So of course travellers would rather go to other countries that don’t require this. SA gets angry when we are red-listed, but we shoot ourselves in the foot by making it prohibitive for people to come here.”
She said high unemployment could be reduced if SA followed the example of other African countries.
Tourvest, the largest integrated tourism group operating across Southern Africa, announced that hotel occupancy was up to 85% in several countries.
Uganda — where Covid-19 restrictions have been completely relaxed — has bounced back and is now reflecting figures that are higher than they were before the pandemic, at 110%.
These half-arsed, pointless, and bureaucratic testing rules for travellers entering South Africa are of no benefit and hurt the economy
— An open letter to government by a group of SA's top medical researchers
Zimbabwe this week joined the growing list of African countries, including Namibia, Botswana and Zambia, in completely dropping the PCR test requirement for inbound vaccinated travellers.
Zimbabwe announced on Twitter that fully vaccinated travellers needed only a valid vaccination certificate to enter.
“It is fantastic news that Zimbabwe has made it easier for visitors,” said Kate Powell, the marketing sales and reservations manager for the Zambezi Queen Collection, which offers safaris on the Chobe River.
“Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls is often an entry point for travellers to the world’s largest transfrontier conservation estate, the KAZA region, which looks after 19 national parks and protected wildlife areas within Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia,” she said.
To take advantage of the situation Zambezi Queen was offering a 45% discount on their all-inclusive packages on houseboats for Sadc passport holders only.
And on Thursday, international cruise line Oceania Cruises announced it would add “dozens more dedicated staterooms for solo travellers” along with the debut of “Go Green and Beyond Blueprints” — an initiative involving new shore excursions.
But for SA the picture remains bleak. Occupation rates are somewhere in the 30% range, according to Fedhasa, the voice of the country’s hospitality industry.
“It’s a distressing situation. Our international travel market is only a fraction of what it was. It’s tough out there. Industry people have lost everything, we are seeing suicides. Some of the large groups, from CEOs right down, are not yet back on their old salaries,” Anderson said.
The government’s stance on PCR tests and other regulations flies in the face of six of SA's top medical researchers who, in an open letter last week, slammed the new draft regulations on Covid.
South African Medical Research Council’s president Glenda Gray, the University of Cape Town’s Marc Mendelson, the University of the Witwatersrand’s Shabir Madhi, Francois Venter and Jeremy Nel, and infectious disease specialist Regina Osih, said all border restrictions should be removed immediately.
They said the regulations were an “ill-conceived and misdirected attempt” to prevent Covid infections in the face of growing immunity conferred by infection and vaccinations.
“If 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 or 1-million people have Covid-19 at any point in time in SA, what impact will a handful or even hundreds of cases of Covid-19 coming into the country make on the epidemic in that country? None, particularly as so many people already here who have Covid-19 are transmitting while asymptomatic.
“Furthermore, PCR tests aren't sensitive enough to ensure that travellers who test negative 72 hours before travel won't be carrying the virus and be able to transmit.
"If vaccinated passengers do not have to perform a PCR test, but may still be infected, these transmitters will not be stopped at the border. In addition, PCR tests tend to stay positive for weeks or even months after the infectivity is over, leaving travellers trapped trying to enter SA.”
Southern African Tourism Services Association CEO David Frost told BusinessLIVE this week the government needed to respond faster.
“It's about how we have conversations in the country. We are going about it in the most suboptimal fashion possible.
“As the international borders start opening up we need to be sitting down and working together. What we would like to see is not ... going to Nedlac, cap in hand, asking for very sensible things to be delivered.
"We would like to see proper structured conversations with the government where they sit with us and say 'what do you need from us to help you grow?' It's not rocket science, but that never happens. It's always us begging, pleading, cajoling, putting arguments forward and being met with a deafening silence.”
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