City tourism hoping to hit the road again on level 2

THE tourism industry in the city is hoping it will recover swiftly after being cleared to resume operations under lockdown level 2, which kicked in at midnight.

Business people in hospitality, restaurants, alcohol retail, accommodation and taverns yesterday said they had started preparing for resumption of services for the first time since the country went into lockdown in March.

Susan Marais, who owns the Marais Guest Houses, said her team was happy and couldn’t wait for provincial borders to reopen today. “This is very good for doing business and job creation. We are overjoyed and believe it is the beginning of the recovery of our economy from the impact of this pandemic.”

The chairperson of the restaurant unit of the Tshwane Tourism Association,

Christian Maiorana, said the return of alcohol and cigarette sales would certainly motivate restaurants to reopen. “Restaurants make most of their revenue from alcohol; people normally want a beer or wine with their meals. That’s why we are happy that many of our colleagues will come back to business and jobs saved.

“Without alcohol, we were only generating around 40% of our normal revenue. For that reason some restaurants never opened, and others which opened during level 3 were forced to close again. We are confident we are going to see some improvement in the industry,” he said.

The head of the Tshwane Tourism Association, Bronwen Cadle de Ponte, said she was pleased the government had lifted some of the restrictions.

“We are grateful to the Tourism Business Council of South Africa and it’s chief executive Tshifhiwa Tshivenga for tirelessly putting forward all of our industry’s requests and proposals to the government to motivate for the reopening of our sector and the lifting of regulations. For those who are no longer held back by restrictions on interprovincial travel, the sale of liquor for on-site consumption and hosting of social events for up to 50 people, may the coming week and months be good enough to make up for the losses they have incurred. We hope too that some businesses that were looking at having to close permanently can now turn that situation around,” she said.

The managing director of Tops at Spar in Lynnwood Lane and Wapadrand, Hendri van der Walt, said his team cleaned the stores yesterday, placing prices and stock in anticipation of long queues from today. “People have been calling and trying to place pre-orders on cigarettes and alcohol, but we’ve opted not to allow that so we give everyone a fair chance. In fact, we are going to limit the number of items each person can buy. It will take some waiting to have all stock delivered.”

The president of the Concerned Tshwane Liquor Traders Association, Oupa Mthombeni, said taverns and shebeens had also started placing orders and cleaning up and would not give the government any reason to suspend the sale of alcohol again.

“We are also creating awareness and speaking to our taverns and shebeen owners to trade responsibly. We’re also keeping an ear open to find out if the government will allow music in our business premises because music makes people gather and there is that 50 people limit,” he said.

However, owner of the Manhattan Hotel, Nico Rowen, said he was still not sure if it would make sense to open the business.

He said over 90% of their clients worked for the government and there was no certainty that government officials would be travelling or not.