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A tourism expert says he would have wanted the President to articulate plans in SONA to deal with incentivising the domestic tourism market.
Focus on an e-visa should maybe be secondary at this point, in his view, as it speaks to the international tourism market.
Projections by hospitality businesses show a significant decline in earnings, down on average by 72% for the next three months.
The industry and its parent ministry likely expected to hear more on recovery measures and stimulus support in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening.
This is the view of Dr Kaitano Dube of the Department of Hospitality, Tourism & Public Relations at the Vaal University of Technology.
Responsibility for developing e-visas for SA has been moved from Home Affairs to the Presidency, essentially for "higher focus", says Sisa Ntshona, CEO of SA Tourism.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that the R350 Covid-19 Unemployment Insurance Fund Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) benefit will be extended to March 15, after months of discussions and debate over continued social and economic relief, aimed at the unemployed. The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has processed in excess of 9.6-million applications between May 2020 and January 2021, and has paid more than 6.5-million grants per month. The total amount spent on this grant, to date, has exceeded R16-billion
Speaking during the SONA, the president said the conditions of the extension – and specifics of which sectors would be included – would be announced at a later stage.