In a Facebook post following the announcement, CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa, Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, said: “It’s done; the state of disaster is gone. We will now work on ensuring that the health regulations are progressive and support industry growth. It’s been a hectic 750 days filled with major downs and few ups. We will continue with our work on events regulations.”

Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) CEO, Cas Coovadia said: “We focused on a critical issue and united to address it. We must now do the same to attract investment, grow our economy and create sustainable jobs. This is the only way to deal with the severe socio-economic problems our country faces.”

He added that the business community should join the President in emphasising the imperative to continue vaccinating. “The virus is still with us, and vaccination remains our best weapon against it.”

Chair of hospitality association, FEDHASA, Rosemary Anderson, said the association was delighted that the State of Disaster had finally been lifted, thus bringing an end to many of the rules that had burdened the hospitality sector, such as temperature checking and contact tracing, which had proven largely unscientific to stemming the spread of COVID.

“As we enter a new post-pandemic era, we have learnt the importance of meaningful engagement and hope that the Government sees the benefit thereof. We genuinely want to establish a partnership with Government to develop a plan on how to grow the tourism industry, market the destination and create thousands of new jobs – the tourism industry being a key potential driver of the economy and job creation,” Anderson said.

“We hope that our industry will receive certainty sooner rather than later with regard to hosting big events as the current restrictions of 50% mean that many of the international events we would host in South Africa would simply not be viable,” she pointed out, noting that for any medium- to long-term planning to take place and events business to be secured, certainty was needed.

“This is an opportunity for us to position South Africa as a leading meetings, incentives, conferencing and events destination,” Anderson added.

Courtesy of Tourism Update – read full article here.