Various tourism entities have expressed their concern over the UK’s “knee-jerk” reaction to institute a temporary red list ban on six African countries, including South Africa.

Following announcements on November 25 that a new Covid-19 variant called B1.1.529 has been identified in Botswana, South Africa and Hong Kong, the British government confirmed in the early hours of November 26 it would add several countries to its red list.

The Flight Centre Travel Group went as far as to cancel their Black Friday sale which would be held on November 26, to assist those custumers who are affected by the announcement.

The Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (Satsa) says the rationale behind the decision is exaggerated and punishes countries like South Africa, which has advanced genome sequencing capability for detecting new variants.

“It is far too early to tell what the impact of this new variant will be. By imposing a blanket red list ban on several Southern African countries as a ‘precautionary’ measure, the UK sends a signal to the world that they don’t believe that their vaccination programme will effectively deal with the variant.

“This is particularly concerning when we have seen that Covid-19 vaccines have performed their role to reduce the severity of hospitalisation and death from the virus,” notes Satsa CEO David Frost.

The association further in a release cites infectious disease expert Professor Marc Mendelson explaining that there is nothing at this stage to indicate that the vaccine protection efficacy will change in the face of the latest variant.

“Covid-19 vaccines have proven themselves robust against all Sars-CoV-2 variants to date,” he says.

University of the Witwatersrand Faculty of Health Sciences Dean Shabir Madhi says people need to come to accept that breakthrough infections will remain with the first-generation vaccines. “The sooner we come to accept it, the quicker we can recalibrate how to move forward.”

Madi adds that vaccines are primarily about preventing severe disease. In the case of the new B1.1.529 variant, he believes people should learn from what transpired with the Beta variant, which also showed resistance to vaccine-induced antibodies.

Nevertheless, the vaccine still conferred high protection against severe cases of Covid-19.

The UK’s red list reaction comes at a time when South Africa’s tourism and hospitality sector desperately needed an active December to mitigate against losses experienced in 2020’s festive season, for which the UK is a key inbound market.

The Association of Southern African Travel Agents (Asata) says this is Groundhog Day for the South African travel industry, putting hotels, airlines and travel businesses in a very difficult situation.

“The world will unfortunately need to learn to live with Covid-19 variants for the foreseeable future. While we await more clarity, there is currently no scientific evidence that the new variant is more resistant to the vaccine.

“Covid-19 vaccines are in fact the most effective way to protect yourself against the virus, as they significantly reduce the risk of serious illness and transmissibility,” says Asata CEO Otto de Vries.

The Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fedhasa) hopes that the red list and temporary flight ban will be lifted swiftly as scientists unpack the extent to which the Covid-19 vaccines will be effective against the new variant.

The association says new variants are discovered all the time, often without making any major impact and “we hope our advanced scientific capability can find, in this case, that there is little to worry about”.

Fedhasa chairperson Rosemary Anderson points out that, despite the direct impact on tourism from the travel restrictions, these decisions have widespread repercussions, including the possible dissuading of British travellers to visit South Africa and also other key markets following suit with their own restrictions.

She says there is no question that South Africans need to go out and get vaccinated as a matter of urgency.

“To be locked down on a semi-regular basis and banned from international travel because of our advanced genomic sequencing capability and low vaccination rates cannot continue. We depend on tourism for jobs and livelihoods.”

Flight Centre agrees, saying there can be a domino affect with other countries imposing travel bans. The company deems it imperative that South Africa achieves an 80% plus vaccination rate to proactively put an end to these situations unfolding.

Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) comments that while it respects every nation's sovereign right to implement whatever measures it sees fit to combat the spread of Covid-19, it deems the UK's decision as one made in haste, given the paucity of detailed knowledge and information on the newly identified variant, its presence and the efficacy of vaccines in limiting its potential to cause serious illness.

And this at a time when Southern Africa was just beginning to see green shoots emerge in tourism.

AASA says the Covid-19 pandemic has caused disarray to air travel and tourism worldwide. 

Southern Africa’s connectivity with the rest of the world fell by 80% as a result of travel restrictions.  Total domestic, regional and inter-continental demand has recovered to about 40% of pre-Covid-19 traffic levels by the start of November this year with domestic and regional traffic leading the comeback. 

Prior to the UK’s latest red list announcement, long-haul traffic to and from Southern Africa was forecast to return to 2019 levels by 2025.