The pandemic, together with the related travel bans and other restrictions, has had a devastating effect on travel and leisure in SA.According to a report from Stats SA last month, only 2.8-million tourists (classified as overnight visitors) visited SA during the whole of 2020, a drop of 72.6% from the 10.2-million visitors we received in 2019.This number is especially dismal when you consider that almost half of those visitors travelled to us in the first two months of the year, before Covid reached our shores.International travel restrictions were implemented in mid-March 2020 and lifted in October 2020 — a small pick-up was seen in December, but it was still 80% down on the previous year. Repeated changes in lockdown levels (and the related beach and alcohol bans) continued to negatively affect companies trading in this sector.Pre-Covid, the tourism sector was a significant contributor to SA’s economy and employment market. For these reasons, it is absolutely vital that a pick-up...
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