Airlines have delayed adding flights until issues such as SA’s continued inclusion on the UK’s “red list” have been resolved.
UK transport secretary Grant Shapps announced last week that SA would not be one of the eight countries being removed from Britain’s red list over fears the Beta variant of the coronavirus continued to circulate in SA despite scientific evidence suggesting otherwise.
The red list bars travellers from those countries from entering the UK unless they are British or Irish citizens or they have residency rights, and even then they have to quarantine, at their own expense, for 10 nights in a designated quarantine hotel at a cost of £2,285 (about R46,442) per person.
In 2019, a total of 436,559 British citizens visited SA, making the UK SA’s biggest overseas source market, but those numbers are expected to plummet if SA stays on the red list.
Tourism business owners are holding thumbs that Monday’s meeting between SA and UK officials and scientists will resolve the impasse.
“We don’t have time to debate this,” said Tourism Business Council of SA CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivengwa.
“There were not enough tourists coming to SA even pre-pandemic,” he said.
“What we need now is certainty.”
Alison Morphet, manager of Mala Mala Game Reserve in Mpumalanga, said the business generated from visiting friends and relatives — so-called “VFR traffic” — had been an important source of revenue for the reserve but had evaporated during the pandemic.
“I think it’s unfair the UK was happy to open to India but not to SA,” she said.
“I don’t understand it.”
It was not all doom and gloom, however, as the number of destinations open to SA travellers continued to grow with popular destinations such as Mauritius, Seychelles, the United Arab Emirates and the US removing travel restrictions.
Resort operator Beachcomber, which owns eight properties on Mauritius, was thrilled by the news the island was opening to SA travellers from…