At a time when South Africa is looking to climb out of a
pandemic-induced economic hole, South Africa says its tourism will drop
due to new travel bans and restrictions enacted by more than a dozen
countries.
The US, Great Britain, Australia and more have put new restrictions
in place on travel to and from South Africa and at least eight other
southern African nations in the wake of the new Omicron variant of the
Covid-19 virus.
Tourism represents 3% of South Africa’s gross domestic product.
"So this is hugely important for Cape Town,” Geordin Hill-Lewis, the Mayor of South Africa’s largest city, told AfricaNews.en.
“There are tens of thousands of families that rely on the tourism
industry. And the whole day I've been flooded with messages from tour
operators saying ‘We had a full December booked with tours for the first
time’. Small hotel owners and BnB owners (are) saying everyone's
cancelled. It's just really, really bad news.”
In fact, the country believes it is being “punished” for its
world-renowned epidemiologists and scientists who first discovered the
Omicron variant.
"This latest round of travel bans is akin to punishing South Africa
for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new
variants quicker," the Ministry of International Relations and
Cooperation said in a statement. "Excellent science should be applauded
and not punished.”
Source: TravelPulse