Initially, President Cyril Ramaphosa supported the 25th June Government Gazette announcing that accommodation establishments in South Africa could once again open for leisure travel within their respective provinces.
Following this Official Government channels published this information in an infographic about amended Level 3 lockdown regulations on social media.
The Below is an excerpt published on the 30th of May by Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane.
Titled; Coronavirus COVID-19 alert level 3 tourism sector measures and direction.
TOURISM SERVICES UNDER LEVEL 3
We believe that the tourism sector should be at the forefront of deploying solutions focused on safety, sanitising methods and early detection, to be used by tourists and tourism employees alike. From our engagements as a sector and having had insights into the extent of creativity and innovation in the sector’s containment efforts in line with the Risk Adjust Approach, I am encouraged that our approach is not only just planning for moving from one Alert Level to another, but seriously internalizing the notion of the new normal as a sector.
Tourism services supports other economic sectors. As parts of the economy opening up, the tourism activities that are supportive have to re-open. As some strategic sectors of the economy will need to operate during lockdown, such sectors will need tourism services, even before the sector is fully opened for leisure. This includes key elements that would facilitate travel of persons for permitted purposes.
We therefore welcome the decision by Cabinet to permit tourism services for the categories as stated in the gazetted Regulations.
I will now highlight the areas that have been opened up under Level 3:
Restaurants for delivery or collection of food. Restaurants with liquor licences are allowed to sell alcohol only for takeout and delivery. In this area there’s been an outcry that they must be allowed for onsite consumption. We are in discussions with restaurants so that whatever solution is provided in this regard for seat down doesn’t perpetuates the inequality and we are confident that in our next submission to NCCC this will be considered
professional services – e.g. tourist guides, tour operators, travel agents, tourism information officers are allowed to come back to operations
Professional Services including training of nature guides and other related services that are able to ensure safe distance.
public and private game farms have been opened for self-drive excursions
Hiking to be done in compliance with excising guidelines and not in groups
Accommodation activities are allowed except for leisure and establishments will no longer require a letter from Minister of Tourism to operate. They are required to ensure that they accommodate those in the permitted services and keep records for inspections by the department
Hunting activities are also allowed
The following economic activities will remain prohibited under level three and these include:
Conferences, events, entertainment activities (such as Festivals) are still not permitted. It must be noted that some of the conference venues have been used in the fight against the pandemic and as such are allowed to be operational including being used for distribution points of social relief measures
casinos not permitted
leisure travel not permitted
TOURISM RELATED SERVICES
We welcome the opening of domestic commercial flights which have been opened for business travel for now as part of Inter-provincial movement as announced earlier by Minister Mbalula. The tourism sector will benefit immensely from this step as travel is an integral part of tourism.
Car Rentals are a critical enabler of tourism and movement of people and are encouraged by them coming to full operations.
We also welcome the fact that those approved to travel are allowed to use long-distance public transport to do so from 1 June including inter-provincial travel. The accommodation and Restaurants subsector and other related services will benefit immensely from these activities.
The opening up of hunting will also be a big boost to the tourism sector. The hunting industry contributes an estimated R2 billion (direct spending) annually to the tourism sector and it also contributes to employment in rural areas. So, this is an important step towards the recovery of the sector.
We have developed directions for the tourism sector to either enhance or provide further clarity on the existing regulations issued to limit the spread of the virus – and in a manner that they can be adaptable in a rapidly changing context. We support a responsible approach by the sector in coming up with innovative ways to prevent the spread of the virus, however, all protocols should be accessible and not preventive to smaller players in the sector. In this regard, I welcome commitment by the industry, particularly the bigger players to provide support to small players through training and other means to ensure sector wide compliance.
The information was unfortunately deleted on Saturday morning and labelled as a mistake.
Sunday’s Gazette then changed back the regulations about accommodation to what it was at the beginning of May. Strict lockdown on leisure travel and only business stays being accepted.
Permission revoked: No overnight leisure stays allowed.
From yesterday, the accommodation industry is now prohibited once again from offering its services except for business travel.
The timeline is as follows:
- May 28th – Business travel, remaining tourists and quarantine stays only, permitted. (39(f).
- June 25th – New text introduced allowing leisure travel within province for all accommodation except for “not formally accredited or licenced” properties with the example of private paid home accommodation.
- July 12th – Amendments reverted. Item 39 now uses the text from the 28th May regulations.
The current regulation goes back to allowing accommodation for business travel only.
The text is as follows:
39. (1) A place or premises normally open to the public. where cultural, sporting, entertainment, leisure, exhibitional, organisational or similar activities may take place, is closed to the public and all gatherings at these places or premises are prohibited.
(2) The places or premises referred to in subregulation (1) include –
(e) hotels, lodges, bed and breakfasts, timeshare facilities and resorts and guest houses, except to the extent that these facilities are required for accommodation by- (i) the remaining tourists confined to such facilities; (ii) persons for work purposes; and (iii) persons in quarantine or isolation; “;
Accommodation for leisure purposes is now also a specific economic exclusion.
Up until Sunday night the text read:
“(2) The places or premises referred to in subregulation (1) include –
(e) accommodation establishments not formally accredited and licensed, such as private homes for paid leisure accommodati
