The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global travel restrictions have severely impacted a number of industry associations and their members.

This was highlighted in presentations to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Tourism in Parliament last month.

The presentations formed a part of the February 2021 report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry, compiled by the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA), and presented by TBCSA CEO, Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa.

Adding to the difficulties of South Africa’s tourism sector, was that (at the time) 18 countries had fully or partially closed their borders to travellers from South Africa, and several airlines had either reduced schedules or had completely suspended flights from South Africa.  

Airlines

The Board of Airline Representatives South Africa (Barsa) reported that of its 32 international airline members, 19 were not operating to South Africa. The remaining 13 members were operating at reduced capacity and offering low fares in order to entice passengers to travel.

“This is not sustainable for an airline that takes ten hours to come to South Africa, for example. The airlines are doing this because they want to remain in the market,” said Barsa CEO, Zuks Ramasia.

She reported that in 2020, airlines globally lost about R118bn (€6.7bn). “It is projected that in 2021, losses will be about US$38bn. In 2020, African airlines lost $3bn and the projections for 2021 are losses of about $2bn. There was a decrease of around 75% in passenger demand internationally, over the previous year’s figure. Domestic demand (globally) decreased by about 48%,” she said.

Ramasia said part of the problem was lack of confidence. “International airlines perceive South Africa's policy as one of uncertainty and ‘stop-and-go’. They say they do not see South Africa as a country having one common message that is succinct, and which talks about good things such as South Africa’s protocols, which are fit and proper to deal with the scourge of COVID-19.

“This is one of the things South Africa really has to work hard on. There is a lot that has been done in South Africa that is positive, which needs to be put out there,” said Ramasia adding that the narrative about new variants should be addressed with the aim of moving away from the label ‘South African variant’.

Agents

Outbound association, Asata, reported that it had had to close its physical office, which has existed to support South Africa’s retail travel agents for almost 65 years.

Because the association earns its income from members paying a percentage of BSP ticket sales and the collection of membership fees, the reduction in industry BSP ticket sales, the closure of many member agencies, and the lack of ability of the remaining members to pay membership fees, have converged, resulting in the association suffering substantial revenue losses.

Asata can now only afford to retain half its already small team, and remaining members of staff are now working virtually and have taken salary cuts to mitigate against the full closure of the association.

“The travel agent industry focuses primarily on three core competencies – corporate travel, government travel, and leisure travel (both domestic and outbound),” said Asata CEO, Otto de Vries. “On the corporate side, there is still heavy restriction on travel, and understandably so, as many companies are reviewing their duty-of-care obligations. Government travel is also severely curtailed. On the leisure domestic side, the South African travel agent sector has never been very prominent. With the way that industry and businesses are shifting, there is an increasing blurring of lines between leisure travel and business travel, and a lot of people are becoming a lot more flexible. Hopefully, down the line, there will be more opportunities to combine leisure with work for those that are working remotely. That is purely speculation at this stage.”