A trip down the Garden Route is a Capetonian favorite, taking one to the popular coastal towns of Plettenberg Bay, Knysna, Wilderness, Mossel Bay and more.
Now TimeOut has included it in its list of 11 ‘most breathtakingly beautiful road trips around the world’, a fantastic accolade for tourism in the Cape. Continue reading →
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!
Very sadly Germany has been added to the Red List, making all the Big Five source markets for our country Red! Spain has been added to the List too, it having been a surprise that the country was not on the initial Red List.
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.
A number of errors were made in the Government’s list initially, admitted to and apologised for by the Department of Home Affairs!
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* A Red Alert has been issued for Europe air travel, with the imminent eruption of the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland, the most serious alert indicating an expected ‘significant emission of ash into the atmosphere’. Four years ago the Eyjafjallajokul volcano erupted, and caused international travel chaos, with 100000 flights cancelled at that time, threatening the arrival of passengers for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
* Yesterday’s earthquake measuring 6,2 on the Richter scale has shaken San Francisco and Napa Valley, and is expected to have caused damage to bottles of wine in America’s prime winemaking region.
* Sadly MasterChef SA Season 1 Top 4 Finalist Sarel Loots, better known by his Twitter handle @SarelvanSabie, passed away from a heart attack today. In the last episode in which he appeared, he was described by the judges as having ‘a big heart’.
* The 2014 SA Young Wine Show awards attracted 1972 entries. Trophies were Continue reading →