The best news in 18 months of the Corona Lockdown broke today, with the UK announcing that it will remove South Africa and 46 other countries from its Red List as of Monday 11 October. Only seven countries will remain on the UK Red List on Monday: Columbia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.
Vaccinated Visitors may enter the UK on the same conditions as those of UK residents, but may not have travelled in a Red List country in the ten days before arriving in the UK. South Africa has been on the Red List since December 2020.
A further positive step is that South Africans’ proof of vaccination will be accepted by the UK. South African travellers will have to show the results of a Covid Test. No hotel quarantine will be required from Monday onwards, a costly affair for travellers to the UK, having to stay in prescribed quarantine hotels at a cost of close to R50000.
The Department of Home Affairs has just announced its revised list of Red countries, being the countries whose citizens and residents may not travel into our country as Leisure Tourists. The initial List of 60 countries was announced on 30 September, with a promise of it being updated every 14 days, but the announcement today is late by five days!
A long list of 60 countries has been red-listed for non-Business Leisure Tourism to South Africa as of tomorrow, a list that the Government will update fortnightly, it was announced by International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor this afternoon. Sadly for our Tourism industry, Tourists from our larger source markets, namely the UK, USA, France, Holland, India, Portugal, and Switzerland will not be allowed to enter our country currently. Good news for me personally is that Tourists from Germany will be allowed to visit South Africa. All visitors from African countries are welcome to visit South Africa, as are those from Asia, and from Australia and New Zealand.
