The Democratic Alliance (DA) will once again write to the Minister of No Tourism, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, to request confirmation on when government will reopen the tourism sector for international travel.
This is in light of the City of Cape Town being nominated for the prestigious World Travel Awards 2020 for no-less than five categories. The DA is concerned that the government’s inaction on international travel could potentially nullify Cape Town’s chances of obtaining these World Travel Awards.
The Mother City has been nominated for the following categories:
- Africa’s leading beach destination;
- Africa’s leading business travel destination;
- Africa’s leading city destination;
- Africa’s leading festival and events destination; and
- Africa’s leading meeting and conference destination.
South Africa should be proud of these nominations as they are as a result of the hard work by the City of Cape Town’s administration in their ongoing and sustained efforts in promoting it as a city of choice for travellers from all over the world.
In 2018, long before the devastating effects of the pandemic, tourism added over R18 billion to our local economy and directly supported just over 110 000 jobs. For this reason alone, tourism should be a priority in every municipality in South Africa.
These nominations are reminder to the government that a date for the opening of our international borders should be announced as soon as possible.
The DA wrote to the Minister of No Tourism 10 days ago and has not had the courtesy of a response. It is for this reason that we have written to her again. The inaction by government in this regard is causing the continued destruction of the tourism sector, particularly our international tourism sector.
Although we can only be proud that Cape Town has been nominated for the World Travel Awards, these nominations may well be nullified by the lack of action in further opening up tourism as jobs continue to be lost.