Managing Director of Wild Wings Safaris, Onne Vegter, wrote in response to Tourism Update’s article titled, “Government to ignore tourism in plan to reopen economy”:
This is a flawed model. None of these industries exists in a vacuum. The tourism industry impacts and supports other critical sectors such as wholesale and retail, food services, transport, finance and insurance, automotive, telecommunications, etc.
Let me quote directly from the government's own website.
"The growth of the tourism sector has been a boon for South Africa’s economy. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the 2018 contribution of the tourism sector in South Africa, directly accounted for 2.8% of real gross domestic product, which amounts to R139 billion (€6.8bn) and this was projected to grow to R145.3 billion (€7.11bn) for 2019.
The indirect contribution of the tourism sector to the economy’s GDP in 2018 stood at an even higher 8.2%, which captures the strong economic links to the demand and supply side that the sector has with other sectors of the South African economy.
In addition, the tourism sector direct employment accounted for 4.2% of total employment in the South African economy in 2018 and this was projected to increase to 709 000 jobs in 2019, while tourism’s indirect contribution to total employment stood at 9.2% for 2018."
While tourism is dead, the total impact on GDP is -11% and the total impact on employment is -9.2%. The question is, how do we get this information to the President and his economic advisers or his Coronavirus Task Force?
