Women’s Month: Travel Ready PR Collective Takes on the Fight for SA’s Tourism Sector

A new PR & Communications collaboration, headed by women in South Africa’s tourism and hospitality space, has thrown its weight behind the inbound tourism sector’s efforts to open the country to international tourism as soon as possible, as safely as possible. The campaign, ‘South Africa is Travel Ready’ is now gaining momentum, becoming a nationwide movement to champion the needs of those in the tourism industry – among the hardest hit by SA’s COVID-19 lockdown.

For the members of the PR collective, the focus is two-fold:

To share positive stories and concrete examples of South Africa’s readiness – lobbying for the safe reopening of domestic and international tourism in order to save an industry. To amplify the voices of women in the sector, who continue to bear the brunt of the lockdown’s economic fallout.   

The South Africa is Travel Ready Collective believes that the Tourism Business Council of South Africa’s (TBCSA) comprehensive health and safety protocols, which meet – and even exceed – international best practice, demonstrate that South Africa is travel ready. The South Africa is Travel Ready Collective believes that the Tourism Business Council of South Africa’s (TBCSA) comprehensive health and safety protocols, which meet – and even exceed – international best practice, demonstrate that South Africa is travel ready.

Every company and individual in South Africa’s tourism industry has the power to contribute to and amplify the message that ‘South Africa is Travel Ready’. Make sure that you are fully prepared to reopen safely – and share your stories and videos with the hashtag #SouthAfricaisTravelReady. Not reopening tourism will have a devastating impact on the 1.5 million people who are directly and indirectly employed through tourism – 70% of which are women.

 As such, the collective’s new campaign #IAmTourism puts women front and centre:

The tourism sector is not a nameless, faceless collection of job stats, scenarios and predictions. Behind each number is a woman, and her children, and her family who are depending on the reopening of tourism for their very survival. We’re talking guides, curio sellers, waitresses, housekeeping teams, agents, business owners, conservation personnel, admin staff – the list is endless. The Government is focussed on the empowerment and protection of South Africa’s women, but the collective believes that a slow reopening of the sector will leave women more vulnerable to joblessness, gender-based violence and hunger.

This Women’s Month, you can add your voice. Send your #IAmTourism images to  iamtourism.za@gmail.com – and help the campaign gather 3,000 images of tourism’s women by Women’s Day, 09 August 2020.

For more information, visit www.traveltosouthafrica.org or email info@traveltosouthafrica.org.

The Travel Ready PR Collective comprises African Twist Travel, Darling Lama, Scribe Consulting, Lesley Simpson Communications, Take Note Reputation Management, Big Ambitions, Tribeca Public Relations, Vuma Reputation Management and The Hunter Group.