Business association Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) has warned that the Covid-19 Omicron variant could have a significant impact on the South African tourism industry.

President Cyril Ramaphosa in a November 28 address to the nation signalled the importance of vaccine mandates and announced that a task team would explore mandating vaccines for specific activities.

BLSA CEO Busi Mavuso has applauded these steps, including discussions at the National Economic Development and Labour Council between business, civil society and labour on making vaccination mandatory, where appropriate.

"The existing protocols absolutely must be properly observed. However, we have learned from the last 20 months that restrictions on domestic economic activity have a serious impact on the economy, leading to job losses, poverty and, ultimately, worse health outcomes.

"It would have been a mistake to place further restrictions on the economy when we simply don’t know what the effects of the variant will be. Any purported health gain from restrictions must be compared to the losses from reduced economic activity," she said in her weekly newsletter.

Achieving the health objectives is best achieved through the vaccine programme. The President placed the focus where it should be, namely getting as many South Africans as possible vaccinated as soon as possible, Mavuso said.

"Our tourism industry has been dealt another serious body blow. We cannot compound that by adding alcohol restrictions or restrictions on movement locally. Tourism employs disproportionate numbers of women and less skilled workers. It is particularly important in the fight against poverty," she noted.

While tourism has been the epicentre of the economic fallout from the pandemic, official efforts to support the industry have been poor. A single fund set up under the Department of Tourism to support the industry ended up being stalled by litigation. South Africa must do better. There is more business can do as well, and BLSA will work with organised business in the coming days to work out ways to support the industry, she added.

Further, the focus of efforts must be on vaccinating the population. The early indications are that the Omicron variant is showing higher infection rates among the young adult population. This reinforces the point that it is not only the old and other vulnerable groups, but all adults should be vaccinated to limit waves of infection, Mavuso emphasised.

The South Africa vaccination rate has been slowing as the country exhausts the numbers of people who are willing and able to access vaccines.

"The introduction of vouchers for certain segments is a positive intervention to drive wider takeup and we have to recognise that many of our people live hand to mouth and do not have the time or resources to seek out a vaccine. We need to ensure vaccines are easily available and that people are compensated for the costs of accessing vaccines," she said.

Mavuso supported the introduction of vaccine mandates by employers to keep those who are vaccinated safe at work and to increase pressure on others to get vaccinated.

"We need to also impose vaccine mandates on key transmission points, including public transport and large-scale events," she said.

She appealed to government not to score own goals in its own efforts to manage the pandemic and key to avoiding own goals is consultation.

"In previous measures, business has been taken by surprise and regulations have caused unnecessary damage. Government needs to understand the consequences of different policy options and business needs to be fully informed to be able to plan to minimise consequences," she emphasised.

Alcohol restrictions are an example. Complete bans have strongly stimulated the illegal alcohol industry, giving resources to criminal networks that enable much wider criminality, which will take years to undo.

"We have also unnecessarily harmed the export trade by restricting transport of alcohol and harmed industrial uses of alcohol, all unintended consequences that could have been foreseen with consultation. There is no health benefit from banning the safe consumption of alcohol in homes and hospitality venues, provided other measures like social distancing are being strictly adhered to.

It is unacceptable to make the alcohol industry a scapegoat, and the target that matters is combatting the transmission of the virus, Mavuso said.

"The pandemic is far from over. We need to fight it on the health front, but we also need to fight the economic consequences it inflicts. We need to urgently face up to the economic impact of the new variant. I will be working with organised business and our social partners to do that and implore you to join the effort," she said.