While Tourism Update readers have welcomed initiatives to remove South Africa from the red lists that prohibit or restrict key source markets from visiting, many have stressed the importance of a successful vaccination programme.

Vernon Wait, owner of Pembury Tours, wrote: “There is a mountain of things that need to be done, the principal one of which is rolling out a vaccination programme in SA at scale AND communicating this to our citizens and our source markets. This is out of the hands of SATSA and the TBCSA and firmly in the hands of government. SATSA, by lobbing in the UK, is doing what it can, given the cards they have been dealt.”

Tourism marketing specialist, Sharon Gilbert-Rivett, added another comment: “We (South Africa) are doing absolutely nothing where vaccination is concerned and lag behind all our neighbouring countries in that respect. All my friends and colleagues in Zambia have had the vaccination, even those in remote areas such as Mfuwe/South Luangwa."