EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY STATEMENT
Minister for Tourism
In the financial year 2020/21, the tourism sector operated mostly under travel restrictions imposed in varying degrees in various countries of the world to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The evolution of the pandemic has seen the virus spread fluctuating between multiple peaks and troughs resulting in the tightening and easing of travel restrictions over time. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) report on restrictions, as of 1 February 2021, 32% of all destinations worldwide are completely closed for international tourism and 34% are partially closed, while 2% have lifted all COVID-19 related travel restrictions.
As a result of these travel restrictions the UNWTO expects international arrivals to have declined by 70% to 75% for the whole of 2020. In this case, global tourism will have returned to levels of 30 years ago, with 1 billion fewer arrivals and a loss of some US$ 1.1 trillion in international tourism receipts. This drop in tourism could result in an economic loss of US$ 2 trillion in world GDP.
Locally, the sector has not been spared from the devastation of the pandemic. According to Statistics South Africa, for December 2020 foreign arrivals decreased by 82.1%, from 1.5 million arrivals in December 2019 to 279,539 in December 2020. It was also reported that while 163,335 tourists came from Europe in December 2019, only 26,880 arrived from Europe in December 2020. Regionally, 772,945 visitors came from other African countries in December 2019, dropping to 161,358 in December last year. From March until December 2020, because of the travel restrictions, there was a significant drop of inbound international travellers which translates into a huge loss of tourism revenue for the financial year 2020/21.
The focus of the financial year 2021/2022, will be on the implementation of the Tourism Recovery Plan (TRP) in alignment with our country’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan. The TRP outlines a set of strategic interventions together with enablers which, if implemented, will ensure business continuity and restore growth in the tourism sector.