JOHANNESBURG - South Africans are showing an eager willingness to travel, despite the global fears of the coronavirus, according to data released by Flight Centre.
At last weekend’s annual Flight Centre Travel Group Travel Expo saw R140 million worth of travel quoted in one weekend, with South Africa, Mauritius and Zanzibar bestsellers.
Flight Centre has revealed it issued travel quotes to the value of R140 million in just one weekend, proving that South Africans are eager to travel despite the weak exchange rate and coronavirus concerns.
Travel Expo sales reached over R50 million. Over 100,000 travellers participated in the Flight Centre Travel Group’s pop-up Travel Expo over the weekend.
“South Africans are incredibly resilient and continue to look for bargain travel deals,” said Flight Centre Travel Group Middle East and Africa MD, Andrew Stark.
“The weekend’s Travel Expo showed us that there’s still a massive appetite among South Africans to travel, especially if they can get a good deal.”
Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) has outlined its increased measures to deal with possible cases of the coronavirus.
The company held a briefing ahead of a site visit to OR Tambo International Airport by Parliament's portfolio committee on health. The MPs were given a private tour of Acsa's security measures put in place to deal with the virus.
The country has been gripped by concern as on Thursday the health department and the National Centre for Communicable Diseases (NCDC) announced the first case of coronavirus in the country.
The patient is a 38-year-old male from KwaZulu-Natal who had travelled to Italy with his wife. Mkhize said the man and his family were quarantined. He arrived in the country on March 1 and only began showing symptoms on March 3.
The man had presented no symptoms when he arrived in the country and only began showing symptoms three days after he returned.