Tourists Will Have to Wait Until 2021 to Travel to South Africa Again

© spooh / Getty Images / E+  Twelve Apostles mountain in Camps Bay, Cape Town, South Africa

By Lauren Bowman, TravelPulse

South Africa recently announced it will not be re-opening to international tourists until February 2021. And even domestic tourism is not set to begin until December 2020.

The National Coronavirus Command Council for South Africa moved the country into Level 3 of the Risk Adjusted Strategy on June 1, which means domestic and international travel is still prohibited - except for business travel.

Hotels are allowed to reopen if they are only providing lodgings for business travelers. All leisure attractions are to remain closed at this point.

While the Republic of South Africa remains in a National State of Disaster, all tourism and business travel is being closely monitored in an attempt to curtail the devastating effects of the coronavirus.

“Based on the COVID-19 epidemic expected trajectory, the first phase of the recovery for the sector will be driven by domestic tourism, followed by regional tourism and international tourism next year,” Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane announced last week, as reported by the Evening Standard.

The Tourism Minister went on to mention how the government is working with those impacted to keep businesses operational: “The past two months of lockdown have been difficult for the tourism sector. We continued to see many businesses in the sector fighting for survival and our projections showed that almost 600,000 jobs were at risk if the sector doesn’t come into operation by September 2020. This reality led to both the government and private sector working together... to get the sector back into operation. As we open up the sector, we are therefore confident that measures have been put in place to protect our employees, suppliers, tourists and all those who are involved with the sector.”

Many countries are in the process of phased re-openings as the initial waves of the world pandemic are beginning to subside.