Tag Archives: Panama

UK removes South Africa from its Red List, with 46 other countries, opens the door to SA Tourism

 

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.

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South Africa reduces list of Red countries for Leisure Tourism to 22, adds Germany!

 

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.

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International Travel regulations: its green for Germany and red for UK and the USA for Tourists to SA, from 1 October 2020!

 

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!

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International Tourism scenarios for 2014!

Tourism 2014 trendsAmerican tourism consultant and speaker Dr Peter Tarlow has made some predictions for the tourism industry in 2014.   He believes that not much will change relative to 2013, but has identified some trends that could impact on the tourism industry globally, as reported by eTurboNews:

1.  The economic status of the world in the past few years has placed greater emphasis on the ‘middle class‘, representing the largest number of travellers.

2.   Middle class travellers tend to be more forgiving of tourism mistakes and less perfect service.  They are however sensitive to economic changes, and the cost of credit in particular.  Interest rate increases makes the use of credit more expensive, and can affect travel. As they live on a budget, middle class travellers will be affected by their expectation of taxes and other major cost increases.  Stock market trends influence confidence, even if the middle class does not own shares.

3.   The upper class is more demanding of service when travelling, and less reliant on and believing in marketing.

4.  Security remains an important issue, and global events, such as the Winter Olympics, the Summer Olympics, and the 2014 World Cup will create security challenges, including terrorism, for Brazil in particular.

5.   Airlines will increasingly be disliked, as their service diminishes, as their rates increase, as they merge to save costs, as they Continue reading →