South African tourism throttled by misplaced omicron alarm, says minister

JEDDAH: The omicron variant of the coronavirus came at a very high cost to South African tourism, as top scientists in the country identified the strain which had its origin somewhere else in the world, said South African Minister of Tourism Lindiwe Nonceba Sisulu.

In an exclusive interview with Arab News on the sidelines of the 116th Executive Council of the UNWTO, the minister revealed that several countries isolated South Africa from the tourism map just because it informed the presence of the transmissible strain to the World Health Organization.