INTERVENTIONS and enablers outlined in the Tourism Sector Recovery Plan will facilitate the preservation of R189 billion of value, and help the sector to recover.

“Additionally, it will position the sector for long-term sustainable growth,” Tourism Minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Unpacking the Tourism Sector Recovery Plan, the minister said the plan represents the tourism industry’s collective response to the devastation brought by the Covid-19 pandemic on the sector.

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The Minister noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has plunged the sector into unprecedented crisis, both locally and globally, as the sector continues to shed jobs with tourism enterprises in distress and small and medium enterprises being the worst affected. Many are facing the possibility of permanent closure.

The Department of Tourism, working together with the industry, developed the plan, outlining a set of interventions to ignite the recovery of the sector, and to place it on a path to long-term sustainability.

“The Tourism Sector Recovery Plan contains a set of interventions to protect and rejuvenate supply, reignite demand and strengthen enabling capability to support the sector’s recovery. The goal is to preserve jobs and livelihoods within the sector, facilitate the creation of new job opportunities, match demand and supply as well as strengthen transformation in the sector including empowerment of women, youth and people with disabilities in the sector,” Kubayi-Ngubane said.

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The Minister said the plan also identifies specific enablers as well as the activities linked to them, their timeframes for implementation and the lines of accountability and its successful implementation will, in part, depend on a set of enablers beyond the immediate mandate of the department and the tourism industry in general.