The North West’s Bojanala Platinum District – which is an hour’s drive from Johannesburg and includes major tourism attractions such as the Pilanesberg National Park, Sun City and the quaint town of Hartbeespoort – has seen tourism revenue losses of more than R600m (€32m) since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak last year and the subsequent travel restrictions.

“The district has been negatively affected since the introduction of lockdown, which resulted in the decline in tourism economic activities, which include job losses, low revenue, investment depreciation and closure of some businesses,” said Deputy Minister of Tourism, Fish Mahlalela.

He visited the province on Tuesday and Wednesday (February 9 and 10) this week to assess the impact of the pandemic on the businesses in the tourism value chain.

North West MEC of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism, Kenetswe Mosenogi, accompanied the Deputy Minister, highlighting that around 400 to 600 tourism jobs had been lost due to the impact of the pandemic.

She said the district employed around 4 000 people in the tourism sector, which contributed about R8bn (€427m) to South Africa’s economy. Bojanala is the largest tourism hub in the province due to the number of tourism attractions in the area. The district accounts for 77% of the tourism investment value and 67% of tourism jobs in the province.

Mahlalela said his department had developed a recovery plan that would be submitted to Cabinet for adoption. “As part of broadening the business of tourism, President Cyril Ramaphosa has launched the R1.5bn (€65m) Tourism Equity Fund to enable new entrants into the market.”

He added that, while international tourism numbers to the Bojanala district had been low, there was “some enthusiastic support” from domestic tourists.