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SA Tourism asks state to greatly increase lockdown relief aid

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capetown thumb100 BL Premium reports that SA Tourism has called on the government to greatly increase financial aid for businesses in the sector which is facing the loss of more than 400,000 jobs from the Covid-19 pandemic due to forced closures since March.  

“When SA holds back a sector from operating, they have a duty to support it and make sure it doesn’t fold,” SA Tourism CEO Sisa Ntshona said, echoing a call from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for increased aid.  The existing package of R200m was “indeed a drop in the ocean”, he said, while also acknowledging that the government faced constraints due to its dire fiscal position.  Tourism is estimated to have already lost R54bn due to the pandemic and is set to lose another R80.2bn in foreign-exchange receipts that would have been generated between May and December.  The sector, which contributed an estimated 8.6% to GDP and supported about 1.5-million people, has been one of the biggest casualties of the economic slump caused by the Covid-19 lockdown.  Ntshona said SA Tourism would make a case that some of the R200bn loan guarantee scheme agreed between the government and commercial banks to help distressed businesses should be set aside for the industry, which he said made R700m to R1bn a day when fully operational.  Meantime, the OECD called on the government to support the development of local tourism so as to counter the seasonality of international tourism.  It also called for the diversification of tourism products and of pricing mechanisms.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
  • Read too, Tourism relief fund must be increased and extended, OECD says, at BusinessLive


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