Coronavirus pandemic: South Africa remains closed for international tourism until 2021! [update]

update (08 June 2020): The Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA), a non-profit, member-driven association representing the region's tourism private sector, just wrote on facebook: "Reports that South Africa's international tourism will only reopen in 2021 are premature as South Africa's Risk-Adjusted Strategy is based on levels of lockdown, not dates. Industry is lobbying for phased reopening of international inbound tourism as close to 1 September 2020 as possible based on stringent safety and health protocols." For more on this topic, watch SATSA's webinar on youtube.

According to a press release, issued by the chairpersons of the Portfolio Committee on Tourism; and the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, Economic Development, Small Business Development, Tourism, Employment and Labour, domestic tourism in South Africa will re-open in December 2020, while international tourism will only commence in February 2021. Certain areas of business travel will be able to operate during alert level three of South Africa's risk-adjusted strategy to manage the spread of the coronavirus, which will come into effect on 01 June 2020.

South Africa's tourism sector, which is currently "the most affected sector of all sectors during the lockdown" [src.] as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, directly accounted for 2.8% of the country's real gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018. The indirect contribution of the tourism sector to the economy's GDP in 2018 stood at an even higher 8.2%. [src.]