The Unemployment Insurance Fund Temporary Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) programme has been a lifeline during lockdown for employees and employers in the travel industry, one of the few sectors in South Africa that has still been unable to fully reopen.

Now that the programme’s extension has officially ended, Tourism Update asks industrymembers how they will manage without this support.

TERS was initially announced by the government as a three-month programme that would top up salaries of employees working in industries affected by lockdown regulations during April, May and June.

When the end of June came and went with no announcement of an extension, the travel industry experienced a period of mass retrenchment where it has been estimated that 50% to 70% of outbound travel jobs were cut.

On July 21, following pressure from industries still suffering under lockdown regulations, the Department of Employment and Labour finally announced an extension of the programme until August 15. This date has now passed and, despite the government’s gesture of reopening domestic travel, the industry remains largely unable to earn meaningful income.

CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA), Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa¸told Tourism Update that, as the impact of COVID-19 was still being felt within the travel industry, the TBCSA was lobbying for a further extension of the programme.

“Domestic tourism is only a small portion of the industry and there are still many businesses within the industry that have received no income for five months now. These businesses rely on international travel and tourism and cannot expect to earn income until our borders are reopened,” said Tshivhengwa.

Otto de Vries, CEO of outbound travel association, Asata, agreed, saying that Asata supported all initiatives aimed at extending travel agencies’ runways to allow their businesses, and the jobs they supported, to continue to exist.

“There is no doubt that the industry will feel pressure to make more cutbacks if TERS is not extended again. It has not even been two weeks since the reopening of interprovincial tourism and while there is potential to earn income through domestic tourism, the outbound industry has, for the most part, always been mostly reliant on international travel, where the majority of its income is generated,” said De Vries.

CEO of Cruises International, Marco Cristofoli, said that while TERS had not come without its challenges and payment delays, it had been an enormous help to the industry.

“We have already suffered for five months under one of the harshest and longest lockdowns in the world. If no TERS extension is announced soon, the funding shortfall will have to be made up by businesses who are still struggling under conditions of partial lockdown. There is no question that this means that more employees will be thrown out of the employment net, as businesses re-evaluate the next steps that they need to survive this ongoing lockdown.”