Tourism industry urges govt to remove PCR test requirement for vaccinated travellers

The Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) says it is pleased to hear that government is planning to ease Covid-19 lockdown restrictions which will benefit the tourism and hospitality sector.

On Friday, Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla indicated that government intends to end the national state of disaster despite the country being far away from reaching population immunity and the vaccination rate dropping.

Phaahla said the Department of Health was revising regulations to control Covid-19, and is ready to present its new recommendations – including travel amendments – to the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) in the coming week.

The minister explained that this would make it easier to travel in and out of South Africa and will help guide the reopening of social activities.

“The proposal will include amendments for travel requirements which could make it easier to travel in and out of South Africa. We hope that the reviewed regulations will help guide the reopening of social activities, especially in the leisure and tourism areas,” he said.

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Speaking to SABC News on Friday, TBCSA CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said the easing of restrictions was “long overdue”, and called on government to “move with speed” in doing so.

“The first restriction that we want removed immediately is that of negative PCR [polymerase chain reaction] test requirement for inbound travellers coming into South Africa who are fully vaccinated.

“What we are saying is that it should be easier for these travellers to come to South Africa… provided that they are not showing any symptoms, we should not require any PCR certificate that shows that they have tested negative for Covid-19.

“So in other words they should be allowed to travel to South Africa using their vaccination certificates,” he said.

Tshivhengwa said this should apply to those under the age of 18 travelling with their parents as well as South Africans travelling in and out of the country.

“If we do those things we will be able to get more tourism from our source markets in Europe, the US [United States] and China,” he said.

The TBCSA boss said the industry supports mandatory vaccinations.

“Government has to decide in terms of whether it’s going to be mandatory or not. The president has already pronounced that there are people looking into the matter, and for us we welcomed that. We need to go back to work.

“If we continue to be hesitant, we’re going to be talking about the same things for years, and we are going to have too many people being unemployed. So we have do right by the economy and our people to move forward from this pandemic,” Tshivhengwa added.

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The Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa) also called for the removal of the PCR test requirement in order to rebuild the tourism and hospitality sector.

“Many destinations, most recently South Africa’s neighbour Botswana, have already removed the requirement for vaccinated travellers to furnish negative PCR tests,” Fedhasa national chairperson Rosemary Anderson told Engineering News.

Anderson said the ease of accessibility will play a major role in travellers’ decision-making when selecting a destination and the PCR test has always been a major stumbling block hampering inbound travellers, who do not always have easy and affordable access to PCR testing in their own country.

She also argued that the cost and inconvenience of mandatory PCR tests are exacerbated if travellers are visiting multiple destinations in Southern Africa over a typical two-week or 10-day holiday period, says Anderson.