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Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane.

• SA’s tourism minister believes many businesses in the sector won’t survive the pandemic.
• But Kubayi-Ngubane is confident gaps and opportunities will exist all along the tourism value chain.
• The finance ministry’s June supplementary budget saw the department’s budget allocation drop.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created a crisis from which many tourism businesses will not recover, Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has said.

The minister replied to a written parliamentary question from ANC MP Ernest Thokozani Myeni, who wanted details on the future of start-up businesses within the tourism sector post Covid-19.

“Many will also be forced to scale back operations,” part of Kubayi-Ngubane’s reply read.

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She said, however, that global recovery benchmarks indicate that tourism is typically resilient in the face of pandemics and is able to rebound strongly.

“Widespread business failures coupled with a fast rebound could create supportive conditions for start-up businesses. Gaps and opportunities will exist all along the tourism value chain and it is important that entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs are supported in their efforts to capture these opportunities.

“It is for this reason that the recovery plan recommends the launching of an investment and market-entry facilitation programme to stimulate capital investment, sector transformation and product diversification,” she said.

Kubayi-Ngubane said, ultimately, the sector must work to attract investment through the recovery cycle in order to create sufficient supply capacity.

“…But also, to support the product diversification and unserved market needs that are likely to accompany renewed growth. Changing traveller preference and behaviours will also create new opportunities that may not previously have existed,” she said.

Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni’s June supplementary budget saw the Department of Tourism’s allocations drop as funds were redirected to more urgent budget items.

As News24 reported earlier this week, the Department of Tourism saw its allocation drop from R2.4 billion to R1.4 billion, as funds were redirected.

SA Tourism’s total revenue of R1.5 billion was revised downward to R438 million.

Since the national lockdown came into effect in late March, the tourism sector has been hit hard due to international and domestic travel restrictions.

Last week, DA MP Manny de Freitas slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “flip-flop” on tourism regulations after the Presidency backtracked on a decision to open hotels, guest houses and lodges for leisure purposes.

The Presidency seemingly confirmed the reopening of hotels and guest houses in a tweet, but it was later removed, stating it was incorrect.

A new tweet summarising a new set of regulations, which included the prohibition of leisure tourism, was posted.

De Freitas said: “The confusion by government has demonstrated it literally has no clue as to what it is doing, but it is also showing total disregard and disrespect for the tourism and hospitality sector”.

Gauteng MEC for Health, Dr Bandile Masuku.

• Gauteng believes the number of Covid-19 recoveries will bypass active cases in the next two to three weeks. 
• Masuku says they have already seen a jump in terms of the number of recoveries. 
• However, of great worry is the number of deaths in the province. 

As Gauteng weathers the coronavirus storm, Health MEC Bandile Masuku says the province is expecting recoveries to bypass active cases in the next two to three weeks. 

Speaking during the Gauteng Provincial Command Council briefing on Friday afternoon, the MEC said since last week the province had seen a great jump in terms of the number of recoveries, but added that “of great worry is still the number of deaths that we are seeing”. 

As of 16 July, the province recorded 117 895 confirmed cases, while 51 256 people had recovered. There had been 853 deaths so far.

“But you will also understand that there is a lot that can be explained about the deaths that we are seeing in the province and, working with clinicians, we are aiming to even go further in empowering our district regional hospitals to make sure that we able to deal and reduce the mortality rate or actually keep it in a very constant steady rise,” Masuku said.

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He also said they had started to see a number of young children succumb to the virus.

Masuku said, as of Friday, the province had 5 748 patients in hospital, with almost 700 in ICU – and 285 on ventilators.

Reduce

“We must put more effort in making sure that we reduce the rate of transmission, and that we also disrupt the pattern of the spread of the virus,” he said. 

Masuku said the initial model had indicated the province would become the hotspot of the pandemic in SA.

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“The lockdown, Level 5 and Level 4, helped us a great deal to reduce the rate, but now because of the urban nature of the province and because of the highly populated province… we have a high number of informal settlements, which are actually densely populated, so this number is actually expected.

“As we have said before, being an epicentre of the pandemic is actually something that we were expecting, and we are just preparing for us to actually deal with the storm.

“So, as we said last week, that the storm is here – now we have to play a part to weather the storm and make sure that we are able to deal with the storm as it goes,” he said. 

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Masuku said, in the coming week, the province will have conducted over a million tests.

“Weathering the storm is no longer about planning, it is all about putting up interventions every day, every minute and every hour,” he said.