Tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has slammed the decision to cease key domestic and local routes operated by South African Airways (SAA), saying this will have a detrimental effect on tourism.
Speaking to Business Times in Sandton on Friday, she said the decision would hit tourism hard and make it almost impossible to attract international tourists from key markets such as China.
"Immediately we will see quite a [big drop] in numbers. If a route is cancelled by SAA, is there an alternative? There are markets which believe in SAA, they love SAA. Will they be comfortable with an alternative?"
She said neither she nor the government had been consulted by the airline's business rescue practitioners before they decided to close routes.
"Part of business rescue or even turnaround of any company should involve talking to stakeholders. If they say they are talking to stakeholders, which stakeholders are they talking to? We needed to be brought on board on the routes, which routes they are removing."
Kubayi-Ngubane said she was taken aback on Thursday by an announcement by the business rescue practitioners - Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana - to the effect that the carrier would drop all domestic SAA destinations except Cape Town and Johannesburg, and close crucial international routes including to Hong Kong, Munich, Sao Paulo, Ndola, Luanda, and Abidjan via Accra.
The minister said this drastic reduction of SAA routes makes her job extremely difficult as she has to explain to international travel agents and other players why routes that made it easier to fly directly to SA no longer exist.
She said discontinuing the Hong Kong route is particularly damaging to efforts at achieving the target set by President Cyril Ramaphosa of attracting 21-million tourists to SA by 2030.
"Hong Kong is going to affect us drastically. The Japanese market use Hong Kong and they love SAA. China is a key source market and Hong Kong was a link with many destinations in China. Now, in a key source market, where you travel in groups, it's difficult when you have to do too many links on a flight. Hong Kong off is going to hit us."
Kubayi-Ngubane saidshe understands difficult decisions have to be made to keep SAA viable, but these have to be made in consultation with those that have a responsibility to grow tourism in SA. "We have a duty to bring tourists into the country. An enabler for that is transport, and research shows direct flights make it easier for travellers."
According to Stats SA, there were 3.5-million travellers (arrivals, departures and transits) passing through SA's ports of entry/exit in November 2019. Of these, more than 2.5-million were foreign travellers, with foreign arrivals alone peaking at more than 1.2-million.
Christelle Grohmann, director of the specialist tourism division at BDO SA, said the large volume of arrivals and departures shows that tourism is one of the major contributors to economic development.
Meanwhile, the minister said SA is not planning to impose travel restrictions on Chinese visitors in response to the coronavirus outbreak. She said all arrivals at ports of entry are being screened by health officials for signs of abnormal fever and other symptoms of the virus, and there is no need to isolate the Chinese in these trying times.
"I don't think it's a message we would want to send, especially taking into consideration our friendship. with China."
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