Travel ban will cripple economy, says industry

THE “red list” travel ban on the country will have a negative impact on the economy, say experts in the hospitality industry.

Last Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the discovery of the Omicron variant by scientists had triggered a travel ban from international countries. Ramaphosa said the Omnicron variant was first detected in Botswana and scientists had also identified cases in countries such as Hong Kong, Australia, Belgium, Italy, the UK, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Israel.

With the current ban, the hospitality industry which normally generates billions of rands would be crippled, says Rosemary Anderson, chairperson of the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa).

Anderson said the economy, particularly the hospitality and tourism industry was already financially compromised. She said another set of restrictions would mean more people losing their jobs due to more businesses in the sector closing their doors.

She warned the government, saying social and economic damage caused by the red-listing and shutdowns could dwarf the damage caused by Covid-19 itself.

“It is also important to remember that in South Africa we still currently have more deaths due to HIV and TB than we do due to Covid-19.”

She said the sector employs 1.5 million people directly and indirectly who might lose their jobs.

“Before the crisis of the past week, the industry had started gearing up and hiring more staff, since wonderful, green shoots of growth had been shown in the prior past weeks.”

Anderson said Fedhasa believed that the tourism and hospitality sector could be the silver lining to reducing unemployment in SA.

“All we need to do is quadruple the number of international tourists coming into our country, which is achievable. Why should we sell ourselves short when we have such unique offerings?”

She said the organisation was working closely with Minister of Tourism Lindiwe Sisulu on a strategy to market South Africa internationally.

“Obviously we first have to get over the current red-listing and get our vaccination rates up, but the plan is to steam ahead when restrictions are lifted,” she said.

Asked whether it would be mandatory to get restaurant workers, especially front desk and waiters, vaccinated, her response was: “Busa has approached the high court regarding this and they expect the court to deliver a judgment within the first quarter of 2022 regarding mandatory vaccination.

“Added to this, our president announced a few days ago that the government would be looking at introducing mandatory vaccinations for certain sectors. It is believed that hospitality and tourism would be included in these sectors, where it will be deemed mandatory to be vaccinated.”

The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the Covid-19 pandemic had caused severe distress, disruption and instability across several sectors in the economy from hospitality, transport, travel and tourism and business development in the SMME formal and informal sectors.

Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Palesa Phili said the pandemic had resulted in a negative impact contributing towards the unemployment statistics in the city and country. “International travel is becoming a growing concern with the international travel ban, which is affecting our travel and tourism sector at a time when we are the busiest as it is the festive season.”

Phili said should the South African government enforce stricter lockdown measures, “we will see profound economic implications that have the potential to lead to disaster”.

She said the recent travel ban had come at a time that was traditionally busy and economically important for the region.