Eighty small businesses from across KwaZulu-Natal came together to brainstorm how to rebuild their companies following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The “Travel with Purpose” workshop took place at Eshowe in northern KwaZulu yesterday. It’s among a series of workshops taking place across the country over nine weeks.
South African Tourism spokesperson Altaaf Kazi explains the importance of supporting small enterprises during this difficult economic period, “We have been having the travel with purpose campaign and as part of the campaign, we are having SMME workshops all over the country. The workshop that took place in KZN was the seventh workshop around the country, which started last November. Basically, we want to equip all the SMMEs in the travel industry with the skills, with the understanding on how to do business in the COVID-19 world. We know they have all suffered during this time. They have been battling during this time and they have been hard hit. So it is all about giving them the skills and the tools to enhance their business.”
Minister launches tourism campaign
Tourism Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane believes that part of the tourism market will only recover in around two years’ time. The minister spent two days in the Northern Cape earlier in March for the provincial launch of the Domestic Travel Campaign. She believes local tourists could be the sector’s saving grace.
Launch of travel campaign in Northern Cape:
Speaking during a two-day domestic travel activation campaign in the Northern Cape, the minister says the tourism sector would not withstand another hard lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The minister says it will take time to regain the number of international tourists with the sector currently being boosted by domestic tourism.
“When South Africa announced that there was a variant that came up within South Africa, that made international tourists more cautious. We believe in the tourism industry that we cannot afford another hardcore lockdown because we will perish as tourism and that is why we need all South Africans to help us so that the numbers in the third wave are not going to warrant for the command council to close down the tourism sector.”
