The Department of Tourism has released their draft recovery plan for the tourism sector, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns.
According to EWN, the Tourism Business Council of South Africa has welcomed the draft and said that recovery in their sector was expected in the next few months as a result.
The recovery plan is a breakdown of the predictions for the reopening of the country for domestic and international tourism based on current data and projections.
Depending on how South Africa fares over the next few months, the recovery plan models show that the country is likely to open for travel between August 2020 and May 2021.
Determining factors for whether the opening will be sooner or later will come down to how COVID-19 continues to spread in different provinces.
‘This scenario assumes that the general observed recovery trajectory persists and that progress towards enhanced treatments for COVID-19 by the end of 2020 continue, with an accessible vaccine coming to market by the end of 2021,’ the Department said in the report.
‘Since indications of international border re-openings remain speculative at the time of writing, these dates represent the earliest likely date at which international travel will resume.’
The optimism about the sectors recovery is currently based in the current plateau trajectory the country’s cases are appearing to take. Should this trend continue, phased re-openings could be on the horizon.
‘It is therefore likely that tourism recovery will experience a number of phases, from hyper-local community attractions, through broader domestic tourism, followed potentially by regional land and air markets, and then the resumption of world-wide international travel,’ the Department said.
Read the full draft plan here.
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