{"id":421264,"date":"2020-07-30T14:30:50","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T12:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=421264"},"modified":"2020-07-30T15:18:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T13:18:35","slug":"new-lockdown-rules-for-south-africa-including-opening-up-leisure-travel-and-an-updated-curfew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/421264\/new-lockdown-rules-for-south-africa-including-opening-up-leisure-travel-and-an-updated-curfew\/","title":{"rendered":"New lockdown rules for South Africa &#8211; including opening up leisure travel and an updated curfew"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has announced a number of new lockdown rule changes aimed at alleviating the stress around South Africa&#8217;s tourism industry.<\/p>\n<p>In a media briefing on Thursday (30 July), the minister said these changes follow consultations made with cabinet and the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC).<\/p>\n<p>The biggest changes include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The evening curfew has been moved to 22h00 to allow restaurants to run a dinner service and give staff time to return home. The sale of alcohol remains prohibited;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Individuals will be allowed to leave their homes for leisure purposes &#8211; but only within their provinces;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>As per the above, accommodation facilities will be allowed to open for leisure purposes. However, no more than two people may share a room, with the exceptions of a &#8216;nuclear&#8217; family (two parents and up to two children);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Short-term rental sharing, such as Airbnb, remains closed;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Inter-provincial travel for leisure is still prohibited;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Tour operators will be allowed to provide guided tours in open-top vehicles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On home sharing specifically, the minister said that there are concerns from the department&#8217;s health teams surrounding that sector.<\/p>\n<p>She said the department has met with Airbnb, and there is a process being put in place, going through protocols submitted by Airbnb, which the department will then take to to the NCCC.<\/p>\n<p>However, she noted that not all home sharing in South Africa is registered with Airbnb, so more needs to be done in the sector &#8211; therefore these services remain closed for now.<\/p>\n<p>Kubayi-Ngubane said that the government will publish an official gazette detailing these changes and the official implementation date shortly.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EJaOA_Wilpw\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While the tourism industry will welcome many of the above changes, the continued ban on the sale of alcohol is likely to remain a serious sticking point.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, the Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) said that the government was considering a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/420271\/government-looking-at-new-proposal-to-lift-south-africas-alcohol-sales-ban-association\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">proposal<\/a> <\/strong>to lift the country\u2019s ban on the sale of alcohol and evening curfew.<\/p>\n<p>The association\u2019s Wendy Alberts said that the proposal would see individual areas take responsibility for alcohol consumption and that individual consumers would have to apply for a permit to purchase alcohol\u00a0 \u2013 likely at the local police station \u2013 and would have to apply using their phone number and other forms of registration.<\/p>\n<p>Alberts said that the association is also calling for a lifting of an evening curfew as it served no purpose considering the current ban on the sale of alcohol.<\/p>\n<p>She stressed that the lifting of alcohol ban was of vital importance and that the restaurant industry cannot continue under the current regulations.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/421230\/calls-to-open-western-cape-tourism-and-hospitality-industry-as-covid-19-infection-rate-plateaus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Calls to open Western Cape tourism and hospitality industry as Covid-19 infection rate plateaus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has announced a number of new lockdown rule changes aimed at alleviating the stress around South Africa&#8217;s tourism industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":352011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-421264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421264"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421300,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421264\/revisions\/421300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}