Helpless and furious, South African tour operators are flooded with cancellations as countries follow Britain's decision to ban travel from the region over the discovery of a new coronavirus variant.
"This is a knee-jerk reaction but with such a strong
snowball effect," said Richard de la Rey of Dark Giraffe Marketing, which
organises safaris and beach holidays in Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa.
"No one knows anything about this variant at all and
they just assume the worst," he huffed.
Hopes for a prolific post-pandemic tourist season were
dashed in South Africa on Thursday, when scientists said they had detected a
new Covid-19 variant with a large number of mutations.
The variant, which goes by the scientific label B.1.1.529,
is blamed for a recent surge in infections in Africa's worst-hit country.
Just hours after it was announced, Britain said all flights
from South Africa and its neighbours Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and
Botswana would be prohibited from Friday.
A slew of countries are following suit, including France,
Germany, Italy and Singapore.
But the World Health Organisation cautioned against imposing
travel restrictions, saying it would take weeks to understand the implications
of the newly discovered strain.
"Finally, we were starting to see the traction of
recovery," said Shelly Cox, who organises sustainable trips to Victoria
Falls, one of Africa's most coveted tourist attractions on the Zambia-Zimbabwe
border.
High-paying foreign tourists were just starting to return to
South Africa, renowned for its wildlife and natural vistas, after the country
was shut off from the rest of the world for most of 2020.
Countries then blacklisted South Africa after another
variant was found in December – a crippling blow as tourism directly accounts
for three per cent of the nation's economy and provided more than 700,000 jobs
before the pandemic.
Britain only removed it from its dreaded coronavirus
"red list" in October this year, before which travellers were forced
to undergo an expensive hotel quarantine upon return to the United Kingdom.
Maxine Mackintosh, a 28-year-old genomics researcher, landed
in Johannesburg on Thursday and was scheduled to travel around South Africa for
10 days.
By early afternoon Friday, she was airborne on her way back
to the UK to avoid having to quarantine.
"We were going to do fun touristy things... go to
vineyards, climb up mountains, go surfing... I feel pretty frustrated because
this is my first trip since the pandemic and I had been really looking forward
to it," said Mackintosh.
"As a safari operator we had seen a really nice uptick
in October," Andre Van Kets, co-founder of Discover Africa Group, told
AFP.
"Booking rates shot through the roof compared to the
pandemic era and we were really optimistic... so to have the hand brake pulled
up so suddenly is very significant."
International visitors represent 90 per cent of the
company's clients. Most come from the UK and the United States, and Van Kets
said he dreaded a similar announcement from the White House.
Travel agencies were meanwhile swamped with holidaymakers
seeking to change their bookings.
"We are mostly dealing with cancellations from people
who cannot fly," said Morongoe Khoboko, who works for Corporate Traveller
Evolution in Johannesburg. "It's been a crazy morning."
Many feel South Africa's blacklisting is unjust. They note
that the country has stricter coronavirus rules than many Western nations,
including mandatory face masks in public and caps on gatherings.
"I am a real big rugby fan and I see stadiums full with
50,000 people... but South Africa is still the problem?" asked de la Rey.
Vaccine uptake has been low, however, with just around 35
per cent of the population fully jabbed after a slow campaign start and
widespread hesitancy.
Governments "panic and I get that to a certain extent,
but there has got to be a better way", said de la Rey.
"It seems we, and the African continent in general, are
the scapegoat." - AFP
0 comments:
Post a Comment