Germany removes SA from travel red list

As local tourism bodies lobby for the UK government to remove South Africa from its travel red list, Germany has taken a positive step forward and reopened travel to the country.

Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has welcomed the announcement from the Federal Republic of Germany that South Africa is no longer listed as a high-risk country.

This means that business and leisure activity between the two countries can resume, boosting the SA’s tourism sector recovery targets.

“Vaccinated travellers from South Africa no longer need to have an explanation of the purpose of entry and can travel to Germany, subject to the validity of their passport and Schengen visa,” said Sisulu.

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Germany has been in South Africa’s top-five overseas markets for some time, and the decision is expected to boost the recovering the market losses suffered due to the pandemic.

“The news also comes during the Tourism Month of September and at a time when we are hosting the continent tourism sector at the hybrid Africa Travel and Tourism Summit in Johannesburg, Durban, Lagos and virtually,” said Sisulu.

The 10 leading countries in terms of the number of tourists visiting South Africa in August 2017 from the African continent were: Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Gabon, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, Congo, Cameroon and Ivory Coast.

“This announcement comes after Emirates announced that they have increased their schedule to 28 weekly flights by October.

“This is a big boost to our tourism industry, and this will see more people travelling for both leisure and business,” Sisulu said.

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But travel between the UK and South Africa remains restricted after the UK kept SA on its red list of countries.

Travellers from red list countries are banned from entering the UK.

The UK revised the list last Friday, removing eight countries – but South Africa was kept on.

Egypt, Kenya, Bangladesh, Turkey, Pakistan, Oman, Maldives and Sri Lanka were taken off the list.