On July 13, 2021, Cape Town Tourism hosted an interactive discussion with Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA). The purpose of the debate was to acknowledge what has been happening in the tourism and hospitality industries and to examine these concerns with industry executives and those who are most affected.
Hosted by Enver Duminy, Chief Executive Officer at Cape Town Tourism and Brett Hendricks, Board Chairperson, the trio provided an in-depth analysis about the challenges and current state the tourism and hospitality industries. A conversation that was previously exclusive to industry stakeholders was now available to everyone in the sector through this webinar.
Since South Africa’s declaration of a National State of Disaster, the TBCSA has been in negotiations with the government to get the tourism and hospitality back on track. However, we are currently experiencing riots and turmoil in areas such as Gauteng and KZN. Because political unrest does not inspire confidence in travelers, the TBCSA must take the looting and vandalism of business into account too. As a result, on July 14, 2021, they meet with the President Cyril Ramaphosa to address the additional tourism-related concerns such as brand image, regulations, and how to persuade other nations to allow their nationals to visit South Africa. As the industry’s leading voice, the TBCSA is dedicated to ensuring that the industry reopens and begins to operate at full capacity by concentrating on the most pressing issue facing travelers today: “safety and security”.
“This chaos is a double whammy now, it makes our job very difficult because now you’re not arguing against the variant now you are arguing against the violence, the security, the personal security of their own people .I can assure you now that all these countries will say, in addition to Covid-19 there’s problems on the ground, won’t even think about coming into the country. This is another issue we now have to deal with over and above Covid variant” said Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA).
Various industry bodies and business owners were given the opportunity to express their concerns and solutions about the discussion topics, which included UIF Covid-19 TERS support for the sector, the negotiations for the UIF TERS, an update on the removal of red lists and the global PR campaign, and progress on the tourism frontline vaccination roll-out
Pandemics and disease outbreaks make areas unappealing to tourists. Now with the added riots and violence taking place in Gauteng, KZN and Cape Town, the three most important provinces known for tourism and hospitality. These incidents, along with sensationalism in news reporting, result in the fear of travel to SA and cancellation of flights, hotel reservations and other scheduled events. The TBCSA is aware that is must immediately identify these issues and seek to resolve them while also taking care of the workers mostly affected.
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