Britain’s red list is costing us billions

There seems to be more questions than answers when it comes to the drawn-out decision from Britain to keep South Africa on its Covid red list of countries from which citizens may not travel to the United Kingdom.

It is creating anger from people that want to travel, and massive revenue loss for our tourism industry. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, British tourism has already cost us R2.4 billion in lost revenue.

Many experts and campaigners have argued that Covid vaccinations are becoming health passports for SA tourists to other holiday destinations, so why not the UK and the US? What’s more frustrating is that Britons who travel here have to quarantine for 10 days on their return – a death knell for local tourism.

On Friday, Britain removed another eight other countries from the list – Kenya, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, the Maldives, Oman, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Many question why Kenya and Egypt, whose genomic sequencing is below par compared to other countries, were removed from the list and not South Africa. The Seychelles last week removed SA from its restricted list, while from 1 October Mauritius will do the same.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, you owe SA a far more detailed response. Our entire tourism industry is on the line.