Safari industry focuses on surviving Covid-19

[Lisbeth]

UK Red List: SA set to be removed next week – Report

According to several reports coming out from abroad, SA is set to finally be removed from the UK red list. About time, right?

by The South African 03-10-2021

After weeks of outcry and diplomatic back and forth, it looks like South Africa will be removed from the UK red list during the coming week. The news will come as a huge relief for many with families abroad. And, of course, our own tourism sector.

WHEN WILL SA BE REMOVED FROM THE UK RED LIST?

According to reporting from Reuters today, SA and several other countries including Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia, will officially be removed from the UK red list on Thursday.

The announcement is expected to then lead to an influx of flights from those countries, to the UK. SA being taken off the red list will mean that fully vaccinated South Africans arriving in the UK, will now no longer need to fork out a small fortune to go into state-designated hotel quaratine facilities for 10 days.

Previously, quarantining in these UK facilities, came with a cost of well over R30 000.

The UK government has also said that from late October, those arriving in England, not from red list countries, will no longer have to take a COVID test before their flight. UK tourists are also one of the biggest tourist markets for SA.

During his family meeting with the nation a few days ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa revealed that he had been in direct discussion with Boris Johnson. The pair had discussed the status of the pandemic in South Africa, as well as the need for our removal from the red list.

Keep an eye out for that potential announcement from Johnson, in the next few days.

[Richprins]

[Richprins]

UK removes South Africa from travel red list

Staff Writer7 October 2021

The United Kingdom has cut 47 destinations from its red list for travel – including South Africa.

In a statement on Thursday evening (7 October), the UK’s transport secretary Grant Shapps said that the change will officially take effect from Monday, 11 October.

“I’m also making changes so travellers visiting England have fewer entry requirements, by recognising those with fully-vax status from 37 new countries and territories including India, Turkey and Ghana, treating them the same as UK fully vaxxed passengers,” he said.

“The measures announced today mark the next step as we continue to open up travel and provide stability for passengers and industry while remaining on track to keep travel open for good.”

I’m also making changes so travellers visiting England have fewer entry requirements, by recognising those with fully-vax status from 37 new countries and territories including India, Turkey and Ghana, treating them the same as UK fully vax passengers. [2/3]

— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) October 7, 2021

The removal of South Africa from the red list means that travellers will no longer be forced to quarantine on arrival in England, which comes at a cost of around £2,295 (R46,658).

It is also expected to significantly boost the tourism industry in South Africa, which has been devastated over the past 18 months by the pandemic.

Virgin Atlantic told the Evening Standard it has already seen a surge in bookings, with particular interest in flights over Christmas period.

“In advance of the red list review today, we have seen our bookings to South Africa increase by 150% over the past four days, compared to the four days prior,” a spokeswoman said.

“The majority of bookings are for passengers originating from the UK however we are also seeing an increase in passengers originating from South Africa as well. The new bookings are for travel in November and December this year in particular around the Christmas period.”

https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifesty ... -red-list/

[Lisbeth]

[Lisbeth]

Conservation tourism in Africa brought to its knees by Covid-19 travel bans


Jimmy Kisembo, a Uganda Wildlife Authority ranger looks up at a lion on his daily monitoring patrol in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. (Photo: Alex Braczkowski)

By Alexander Richard Braczkowski and Duan Biggs | 21 Oct 2021

With trillions lost in revenue globally and up to 50% of jobs lost in Africa’s tourism sector, the industry faces an uncertain future.
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It’s been over 20 months since the World Health Organization announced Covid-19 as a global health emergency and pandemic. It’s estimated that the resulting reductions in travel in 2020 alone wiped $4.5-trillion from the global tourism economy and cost millions of jobs.

In Africa, half of all the people working in tourism lost their jobs. A recent United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report estimates a further $1.7-$2.4-trillion could be lost from the global tourism sector by the end of 2021. In Africa, these losses are projected at $170-253-billion.

Tourism is an important source of funding for managing protected areas and provides jobs for people living near national parks and wildlife. When travel to protected and conserved areas such as national parks and community conservancies is cancelled en masse, jobs and conservation management are placed at risk.

We studied several peer-reviewed studies and economic reports published over the last 12 months to examine the effects the pandemic has had on tourism to conservation areas in Africa, and to look for any signs of recovery.

Counting the costs

Overwhelmingly, the majority of Africa’s protected areas (both private and public) took a massive blow from the collapse in tourism. In South Africa, lockdowns caused a 96% drop in tourist visits to national parks under SANParks management. This equated to about 90% of tourism revenue, highlighting the fragility and risk of a sector that’s reliant on a single primary income stream. This also caused anxiety about health and job security among park staff.


Veterinarians treat a wounded elephant in Ishasha, Uganda. Tourism is the main source of revenue for such activities in many of Africa’s national parks. (Photo: Alex Braczkowski)

In Uganda, national parks typically generate 88% of their revenue from tourist entrance fees. A collapse in tourism visitation between July and December 2020 erased roughly $1.4-million from the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s annual budget. This hampered core management activities such as anti-poaching and there’s evidence that poaching doubled in the county’s two largest parks between February and May of 2020.

Private wildlife industries weren’t spared either. In South Africa between March and May of 2020 alone, cancelled hunting trips, live sales of animals and the sale of meat products resulted in losses totalling $406-million.

While the contributions of travel and tourism to GDP in African states dropped in line with the global 2020 average (Africa experienced a 49.2% decline while the global average was 49.5%), Africans working in the tourism sector suffered disproportionate job losses, falling 29.3% (representing 7.2 million jobs) compared to the global average of 21.5%. In Botswana, the 2020 lockdowns led to about 99% of the country’s tourism workforce being temporarily or permanently laid off.

These cases of job loss are particularly notable because most African nations have not had the same economic safety nets and relief packages as those in wealthier parts of the world, such as western Europe or Australia.

The lack of economic safety nets is most felt by people working in Africa’s informal tourism economy (such as porters in Uganda’s gorilla trekking industry, or mokoro polers in Botswana’s Okavango Delta) who tend to make just a few US dollars per day.

Looking ahead

Although tourist arrivals for sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa are no better in 2021, and budgets for protected areas continue to be cut, stretching an already severely depleted park ranger force, there are some glimmers of hope. June, July and August saw significantly better occupancy in north, southern and sub-Saharan African hotels. Moreover, a recently assembled expert panel from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation expected travel levels to Africa to get back to pre-pandemic levels by 2023 or 2024.

A number of strategies have been tried by different stakeholders to strengthen protected areas and related livelihoods in response to the pandemic. These include: domestic tourism; contactless and virtual tourism; and novel conservation financing such as direct payments for wildlife conservation.

Banks can help safari operators by reducing rates, waiving penalties and rescheduling loan repayments.

Many countries are encouraging residents to travel locally and visit national parks. The Uganda Wildlife Authority, for example, cut entrance fees to national parks by 50%. Botswana cut entrance fees by up to 70%.


A male lion walks on the Satara road of the Kruger National Park, trailed by tourist vehicles. (Photo: Alex Braczkowski)

There has also been an uptick in the use of contactless methods for tourism. Virtual safaris were an almost immediate response to the global pandemic in some wildlife reserves in South Africa.

Finally, innovative ways of financing conservation land and the communities supporting wildlife conservation are on the horizon. For instance, the World Bank pledged $45-million towards a wildlife bond for the endangered black rhino. Its aim is to sell a bond to investors that will yield investments directly tied to the population increases of the species in South Africa. Mechanisms like this could supplement existing conservation land carbon offsetting schemes like those found in Kenya and in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Importantly, African tourism recovery will depend on the progress made with vaccination rates, not only of international tourists but of the citizens of African countries.

Currently, African countries suffer from the highest rates of vaccine inequality anywhere in the world. Addressing this inequity is not only a global ethical issue but will allow for a relaxing of travel restrictions linked to the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Without it, global herd immunity remains out of reach and so does the recovery in tourism that Africa so desperately needs. DM