During pandemic, Africa tourism lost almost a third of its job

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

On Monday, Tourism Minister of South Africa, Lindiwe Sisulu, said that the data from the World Travel and Tourism Council shows tourism sector to have lost almost a third of its job in the wake of the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, African’s tourism industry had generated over R3 trillion and accounted for just under 7% of the GDP of the continent, also previously supported 24.7 million jobs, she said.

WTTC statistics after the outbreak of Covid-19 shows a drop of R1.2 trillion and a loss of 7.2 million jobs, said the minister.

Sisulu explained that it was an important step that at present, up to 500 people can take part in outdoor events and 250 people can partake in indoor events in SA.

However, she explained that post-pandemic recovery would need careful attention to policy priorities to be resilient, inclusive and sustainable.

Priorities include support for the health sector, efficiently make use of the monetary as well as fiscal support, get social safety nets bigger and make growth evenhanded to concentrate on rising poverty, she said.

Also, initiations should be made to make the workforce all prepared for the future and foster regional and multinational cooperation.

“The world tourism organization estimates that tourism in Africa could more than double to 134 million tourists in 2030 as opposed to 50 million we had in 2010. We are gearing ourselves for that. In our case in South Africa we regard ourselves as a desirable tourism destination, which accounts for a substantial amount of the country’s revenue,” she said.

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