AQUILA COLLECTION ADDS ITS VOICE AS SOUTH AFRICA PLANS TO REOPEN FOR INBOUND TOURISM.
The Aquila Collection is a proud executive partner to Cape Town Tourism and participates in a variety of tourism bodies. The company is also aligned with national tourism organisations like SATSA, AAVEA, FEDHASA and SAACI.
The Aquila Collection welcomes the recent TBSCA (Tourism Business Council of South Africa) announcement on their “whole of industry” approach to gear the industry to be ready for inbound tourism from as early as September 2020.
We furthermore note the recent misrepresentation of information that was distributed by international media, stating that South Africa will only allow for international tourism from 2021. Besides being factually incorrect, this irresponsible media reporting intensifies the devastation already caused by this Covid-19 pandemic in this sector.
South Africa embarked on a risk adjusted strategy to slowly reopen the various economic sectors over a period of time in an effort to curb the loss of life expected by the Coronavirus outbreak. This means, other than the levelled approach, there are no confirmed deadlines to any possible reopening of any function of the economy.
Having said that, the Aquila Collection has actively participated through the unified voice of all major tourism bodies, under the guidance of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA), to formulate the Tourism Recovery Strategy currently being developed by South African Tourism. This strategy aims to work with the government to assure them that international inbound tourism can be opened safely in a phased approach with appropriate protocols.
Actively participating in these sessions, we can confirm that the recovery strategy that was presented to South Africa’s Tourism Minister Nkhensani Kubayi-Ngubane, advocates unequivocally for the reopening of international tourism to South Africa within this year. The Tourism Recovery Strategy proposes a phased approach to opening inbound international travel to South Africa from as close to 1 September 2020 as the risk-adjusted strategy allows.
The CEO of The Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa confidently stated, “By instituting a phased approach to reopening, we will have had the benefit from the learnings from the European and Northern Hemisphere summer season”.
In addition to the learnings and risk adjusted approach, South Africa is uniquely positioned to welcome visitors to cultural and natural diversity with wide open spaces and less-dense outdoor activities and attractions.
The Aquila Collection continues to urge its staff and fellow South Africans to follow social distancing guidelines, wear a mask in public and regularly wash their hands as we work together to help stop the spread of the virus.