Tourism Business Council questions ‘senseless’ hospitality lockdown regulations 

The Tourism Business Council of South Africa has said that the regulation requiring hotels and restaurants to use only half of their floor space was senseless, raising questions about how decisions were made.

Chief executive Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said they took up the matter with the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), after which the regulations were immediately changed to allow, among others, hotels and restaurants to operate at full capacity.

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“If you say 50%, you say for the entire hotel. A hotel is like an apartment complex, people stay in their rooms. So you are saying people should be out of their apartment complex homes? 

“[It] did not make any sense,” Tshivhengwa said.

Barely two days after the regulations were gazetted, the lockdown regulations for alert Level 4 were amended, relaxing the restrictions on accommodation businesses, retailers and alcohol exporters.

From being banned to using more than 50% of their capacity, the amended rules allows hotels, bed and breakfasts and other accommodation establishments to operate at full capacity of the available rooms.

According to the amendments, gazetted by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, this provided that patrons keep their social distance and wear masks when they are in shared spaces.  

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Retail businesses can also now admit people who would take up half their available floor space, but will also be bound by the general provisions for all businesses that have long been in place, with no special Level 4 rules.

“Immediately after the first regulations were released, we immediately took them up (at Nedlac) and these were immediately changed. This type of mistake costs this industry a lot of money, causing panic with people cancelling. 

“I really do not know what it says about the thought processes in making the regulations,” Tshivhengwa said.

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With alcohol establishments previously targeted and broken into, also slightly changed are the rules on transporting alcoholic drinks.

In the gazetted regulations released on Monday, alcohol can only be moved for export and as part of a process to manufacture hand sanitiser or other cleaning products. 

But now, booze can be moved from manufacturing and storage, when it is “being transported from any licensed premises for safe keeping”.