There is still a lot of clarity needed about the regulations for South Africa’s borders reopening.

The #SouthAfricaisTravelReady marketing collective hosted a webinar yesterday (Tuesday, October 6) with tourism expert, Gillian Saunders, to address industry’s questions.

“The situation is very fluid, we have access to regulations, speeches and some of the Minister’s comments, but what’s written in law is what’s written in law essentially. We are trying to piece together the puzzle – or fix the aeroplane while we’re flying – which makes things very challenging,” said Director of Big Ambitions and one of the marketing collective members, Natalia Rosa.

Saunders said the Tourism Business Council of South Africa was currently compiling a list of the areas where clarity was still needed and would be raising these questions with the relevant governmental departments responsible for the regulations.

She addressed the issue – raised by a number of operators – of transiting through high-risk countries while en-route to South Africa. She said as passengers in transit at an airport were ‘in a travel bubble’ there should be no problem – provided their negative COVID certificate was still valid on arrival in South Africa.

“We don’t think it would be a problem,” said Saunders, emphasising that details such as this still needed to be clarified by the government.

There is also confusion about the COVID-19 certificates and how South African airport authorities will authenticate these. “The regulations currently say that they reserve the right to investigate the authenticity of the documents,” said Saunders, pointing out that government had not offered insight into how this authenticity would be proved. “I’ve not seen one of these certificates but I know that they are often sent digitally and travellers could have them on their phone,” she said.

Travellers arriving in South Africa with connecting flights may encounter an issue should their COVID test prove invalid, or should they present symptoms. “It would be irresponsible to allow somebody presenting symptoms of COVID on to another flight,” said Saunders.

Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa Chair, Carla da Silva, offered a small glimmer of hope by confirming that an initial issue regarding aircraft crew had been raised with government and addressed immediately. “As the airlines decide to start operations, we cannot have these problems and challenges,” she said.