It’s official: SA is off the UK’s travel ‘red list’

It’s official: SA and 10 other African countries will be removed from the UK’s infamous “red list” of travel restrictions at 4am on Wednesday.

Announcing the decision on Tuesday afternoon, Britain’s transport secretary Grant Shapps said all existing testing measures remain in place and would be reviewed in the first week of January.

UK health secretary Sajid Javid told parliament: “Now that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK and Omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad."

The red-listed countries, requiring citizens to quarantine in hotels for 10 days at their cost, were SA, Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Expensive quarantine packages will be scrapped and travellers from southern Africa could self-isolate at a location of their choice, Javid said.

While welcoming the decision, many stakeholders in SA’s travel and tourism industry said the industry had already suffered massive harm.

“Red-listing southern Africa for just three weeks caused incalculable damage to jobs and livelihoods in the region, with little discernible benefit to health outcomes in the UK,” said David Frost, CEO of South Africa Tourism Services.

“The UK government must consign this blunt instrument to history and recognise the devastating impact red lists have to confidence among the travelling public.”

The Association of Southern African Travel Agents is urging countries around the world to follow the UK’s lead and scrap draconian travel restrictions on SA.

“When the UK initially red-listed SA following the discovery of the Omicron variant in November, countries around the world immediately followed suit and issued travel bans on our country,” said Asata CEO Otto de Vries.

“Within the space of few hours, South Africans were banned from travelling to dozens of countries around the world. We urge that these countries react with the same swiftness and urgency by also lifting their travel bans and restrictions on SA with immediate effect.”

The travel bans imposed on SA had been devastating for the travel industry, De Vries said.

“Forward bookings collapsed with feedback from the industry suggesting bookings until mid-February 2022 were severely affected.

“The travel industry rallied together once more and lobbied for the travel bans to be lifted as a matter of urgency. I’m happy to see our collective efforts have been successful and that we can  again focus on the recovery of our travel industry.

“We are hopeful  we can save a part of the December/January holidays for at least some South African travellers, whether they’d like to spend a well-deserved holiday or have been dreaming to spend the festive season with their loved ones overseas.”

Travelstart country manager John Friel said it was difficult to gauge whether those who had booked to fly to the UK in recent weeks would opt to rebook to travel this festive season.

“With so much uncertainty, many Travelstart customers opted to cancel their plans and either suspend their tickets for later travel or to take refunds if the airlines permitted refunds.

“If history is to be repeated, when these bans are lifted people’s appetite to travel will prevail, and airlines’ ability to react to this will not only depend on South Africans booking to leave SA but also traffic coming into SA,” Friel said.

“Airlines have the ability to change aircraft type to add more seats and/or increase the flight frequency/ There are a number of factors at play here.”

Speaking shortly before the lifting of the travel ban, Tourism Business Council of South Africa CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said the UK needed to remove its “discriminatory red list” and begin rebuilding trust with the African countries “where this travel policy has caused anger and resentment”.

The UK is the largest overseas market for tourism into SA. In a typical year about 450,00 British passport holders travel into SA, contribution R265bn to national income from tourism. 

Tourism supports 1.5-million jobs in SA, generating vital income for training and education.

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