Tourism Recovery Plan one dimensional and devoid of any research and fact

5 May 2020

On Monday, the Department of Tourism presented its Tourism Recovery Plan to Parliament. The Democratic Alliance (DA) was left with more questions than answers as the recovery plan, which the Department claims would use a “risk-adjusted approach”, can only be described as one dimensional and devoid of any proper research.

The only immediate proposal is its discriminatory race-based Tourism Relief Fund which will only do the sector more harm than good. Of particular concern to the DA were the following three points:

The “risk-adjusted” plan was drawn up in isolation, seemingly without any inputs from experts and taking into account the various lockdown levels. This is evident by the fact Department officials were unable to define the levels of recovery and how they arrived at these levels in their plan.

The plan arbitrarily foresees the revival of tourism in only 12 months, while also arbitrarily labelling the next 6 months as a “readiness” period, Completely ignoring the realities on the ground where businesses are currently forced to close their doors and as a result jobs have already been lost. The tourism sector simply cannot wait to fit in with an illogical and ill-conceived government plan.

The “re-emergence” phase, in which the plan again arbitrarily decides will occur in 6 to 12 months, the recovery of the market will “begin” to be executed. This phase presumes that Government will exclusively manage and control the tourism sector, without any contribution from the private sector as if it is a bystander looking in.

With all these enormous gaps in the plan, it is clear that no proper scientific and statistical driven data has been defined and thus will not be collected and collated to inform a proper tourism recovery plan. This, therefore, explains the one-dimensional recovery plan which does not understand, nor take into account the reality of the tourism value chain.

The Department did not present Parliament with a real tourism recovery plan – it was a hollow and unrealistic strategy and will not save the tourism industry. The DA will engage with the Department of Tourism to ensure that a proper and realistic tourism plan is put in place so that the closure of businesses and job losses are minimised.

Issued by Manny De Freitas, DA Shadow Minister of Tourism, 5 May 2020