The Bureau for Economic Research (BER) has issued a sobering release quantifying how badly the tourism sector in South Africa has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and 2021 so far, and how this has played out into the job market.

The lockdowns and the dearth of inbound tourists have meant dramatic changes for tourism businesses. From 1.6m jobs supported by tourism in 2018, the number has fallen by 60% to just 640 000 jobs supported, many in the informal economy.

The report says in domestic tourism in 2020 – compared with 2019 (when tourism was ‘normal’) – day trips were down by 54% and overnight trips by 40%. So far this year, day trips are still 43.1% below 2019 levels and overnight trips 25% below the 2019 levels.

Figures show that South Africa’s inbound visitors dropped from 10.2m international overnight visitors in 2019 to 3.3m (70% drop) in 2020 and currently in 2021 the number of inbound visitors remains higher than 2020 but still very low.

Accommodation-wise, seasonally adjusted income from accommodation was down 74% in July 2021 (from July 2019). Income fell by 53% from June 2021 to July 2021 due to the stricter lockdown and the unrest in South Africa. Average occupancy over 2019 was 46.6%; in July 2021 it was 16%.

The tourism industry supported 1.6m jobs in the SA economy in 2018. A large number of them were semi-skilled, or in the informal economy.

The BER’s research shows:  

*A decline in domestic tourism and inbound visitor numbers from 10.2m in 2019 to 3.2m in 2020;

*A drop in tourist spend (from R273bn (€15.47bn) in 2018 to R109bn (€6.18bn) in 2020);

*A smaller contribution to GDP (from 7.2% in 2018 to 2.9% in 2020);

*Fewer jobs supported – from 1.6m in 2018 to 640 000 jobs supported by the tourism industry (2020 statistic).

According to the BER, stats were derived from Statistics South Africa and SA Tourism Domestic Tourism Survey.