Tips to aid business recovery may be helpful, but the travel industry has to accept that temporary closure may be a more feasible option.

Speaking as a panellist at the second of Tourism KZN’s series of online workshops aimed at small tourism businesses, Thuba Sibisi, Enterprise Development Manager of non-profit enterprise-development incubation organisation, Black Umbrellas, said many businesses realised they were in a fragile position, even before the advent of COVID-19.

“If you mainly deal with business clients for conferences and training, COVID-19 has completely disrupted that and it is hard to imagine how your business will manage if it keeps operating as is,” she said.

Small businesses will have to consider if it’s time to temporarily close shop because they may fall into more debt trying to save a ship that’s already sinking. While this may be a daunting prospect, Sibisi reminded tourism operators that they once started somewhere, and they could always start again.

Another panellist, John White, Executive Director of consulting firm Siyakha, gave similar advice.  “If there’s no hope, don’t draw savings to prop up an organisation. The travel industry will be opening up in eight months. We know that the TBCSA is lobbying to open up in September but one must be realistic,” he said.

No industry could operate if it was not viable, said White, adding that he believed that the tourism sector had to make a lot of noise to make a compelling case to open up early.

Tourism KZN’s next online workshop for small businesses is on June 17 between 10h00 and 12h00.