Lifting the “red list” system is the first step to rebuilding tourism

12 November 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that the disastrous “red list” of international nations has been scrapped and sees it as an admission that this ill-conceived system hadn’t worked. The arbitrary and illogical categorization of certain countries as high risk that disallowed persons from those countries entry to South Africa was destroying an already decimated tourism sector.

The DA hopes that at last government will allow the tourism, travel and hospitality sectors to do what it’s good at – without government’s involvement or hindrance. The government has done nothing but destroy and stunt the tourism and related sectors since lockdown started in March. It is now time for the sector and the free market to flourish. In allowing this to take place, the sector will be developed, and opportunities will arise. In turn growth will occur and jobs will be created.

What the sector now needs is stability and policy consistency as these are the main criteria used by most of our greatest tourism markets. This will ensure that tourists from all over the world will come flooding back to our shores, which will allow the sector to rebuild and jobs to be created again.

The current state of the world means South Africa is in competition with other destinations that will work hard to attract much needed and overdue tourism. As a result, we have to be attractive, convenient and interesting so that tourists will make our country their destination of choice. The President’s announcements to allow tourism to flourish is the first step in this direction.

Issued by Manny de Freitas, DA Shadow Minister of Tourism, 12 November 2020